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 have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their arithmetical magnitude.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index N > Category: Never

Never Quotes (1089 quotes)

… certain conditions under which the observable thing is perceived are tacitly assumed ... for the possibility that we deal with hallucinations or a dream can never be excluded.
In The Language of Modern Physics (1956).
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Condition (362)  |  Deal (192)  |  Dream (222)  |  Hallucination (4)  |  Observable (21)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Thing (1914)

... If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.
The Scientific Basis of Morals (1884), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Back (395)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Credulous (9)  |  Danger (127)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habit (174)  |  Lose (165)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Sink (38)  |  Society (350)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wrong (246)

…I distinguish two parts of it, which I call respectively the brighter and the darker. The brighter seems to surround and pervade the whole hemisphere; but the darker part, like a sort of cloud, discolours the Moon’s surface and makes it appear covered with spots. Now these spots, as they are somewhat dark and of considerable size, are plain to everyone and every age has seen them, wherefore I will call them great or ancient spots, to distinguish them from other spots, smaller in size, but so thickly scattered that they sprinkle the whole surface of the Moon, but especially the brighter portion of it. These spots have never been observed by anyone before me; and from my observations of them, often repeated, I have been led to the opinion which I have expressed, namely, that I feel sure that the surface of the Moon is not perfectly smooth, free from inequalities and exactly spherical… but that, on the contrary, it is full of inequalities, uneven, full of hollows and protuberances, just like the surface of the Earth itself, which is varied everywhere by lofty mountains and deep valleys.
Describing his pioneering telescope observations of the Moon made from Jan 1610. In The Starry Messenger (Mar 1610). Quoted in Patrick Moore, Patrick Moore on the Moon (2006), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Call (781)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Crater (8)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Express (192)  |  Feel (371)  |  Free (239)  |  Great (1610)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Portion (86)  |  Protuberance (3)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Two (936)  |  Valley (37)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

...they have never affirm'd any thing, concerning the Cause, till the Trial was past: whereas, to do it before, is a most venomous thing in the making of Sciences; for whoever has fix'd on his Cause, before he experimented; can hardly avoid fitting his Experiment to his Observations, to his own Cause, which he had before imagin'd; rather than the Cause to the Truth of the Experiment itself.
Referring to experiments of the Aristotelian mode, whereby a preconceived truth would be illustrated merely to convince people of the validity of the original thought.
Thomas Sprat, Abraham Cowley, History of the Royal Society (1667, 1734), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Bias (22)  |  Cause (561)  |  Convince (43)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Making (300)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Preconceive (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trial (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Validity (50)  |  Venom (2)  |  Whoever (42)

...while science gives us implements to use, science alone does not determine for what ends they will be employed. Radio is an amazing invention. Yet now that it is here, one suspects that Hitler never could have consolidated his totalitarian control over Germany without its use. One never can tell what hands will reach out to lay hold on scientific gifts, or to what employment they will be put. Ever the old barbarian emerges, destructively using the new civilization.
In 'The Real Point of Conflict between Science and Religion', collected in Living Under Tension: Sermons On Christianity Today (1941), 142.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Barbarian (2)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Control (182)  |  Determine (152)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Employ (115)  |  Employment (34)  |  End (603)  |  Germany (16)  |  Gift (105)  |  Hand (149)  |  Adolf Hitler (20)  |  Hold (96)  |  Implement (13)  |  Invention (400)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Radio (60)  |  Reach (286)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Tell (344)  |  Totalitarian (6)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

“Of course they answer to their names?” the Gnat remarked carelessly.
“I never knew them to do it,” [said Alice.]
“What’s the use of them having names,” said the Gnat, “if they won’t answer to them?”
“No use to them,” said Alice; “but it’s useful to the people that name them, I suppose.”
In Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871, 1897), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Course (413)  |  Day (43)  |  Do (1905)  |  Moon (252)  |  Name (359)  |  Night (133)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  People (1031)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)

“That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”
“About six inches to the mile.”
“Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”
From Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Assure (16)  |  Cartography (3)  |  Consider (428)  |  Country (269)  |  Cover (40)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enquire (4)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Grand (29)  |  Grandest (10)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inch (10)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Making (300)  |  Map (50)  |  Mile (43)  |  Model (106)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Object (438)  |  Scale (122)  |  Shut (41)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Whole (756)  |  Yard (10)

[1157] The man who blames the supreme certainty of mathematics feeds on confusion, and can never silence the contradictions of sophistical sciences which lead to an eternal quackery.
W. An. III. 241 a. From the original Italian: “Chi biasima la soma certezza della matematica, si pasce di confusione mai porrà silentio alle contraditioni delle soffistiche sciētie, colle quali s’inpara vno eterno gridore.” English and Italian in Jean Paul Richter (trans.), 'Philosophical Maxims: Of Mechanics', The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), Vol. 1, Part 2, 289, Aphorism 1157. [Note: Da Vinci writes ē=en.] Also translated beginning, “Those who condemn…”. Also seen translated as “Whoever despises the high wisdom of mathematics nourishes himself on delusion and will never still the sophistic sciences whose only product is an eternal uproar,” in Nicholas J. Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims (1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Blame (31)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Feed (31)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Quackery (4)  |  Silence (62)  |  Sophism (2)  |  Supreme (73)

[1665-10-16] But Lord, how empty the streets are, and melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets, full of sores, and so many sad stories overheard as I walk, everybody talking of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in this place, and so many in that. And they tell me that in Westminster there is never a physitian, and but one apothecary left, all being dead - but that there are great hopes of a great decrease this week. God send it.
Diary of Samuel Pepys (16 Oct 1665)
Science quotes on:  |  Apothecary (10)  |  Being (1276)  |  Empty (82)  |  Everybody (72)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Lord (97)  |  Man (2252)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  People (1031)  |  Plague (42)  |  Poor (139)  |  Sick (83)  |  Talking (76)  |  Tell (344)  |  Walk (138)  |  Week (73)

[A] quality of an inventor is imagination, because invention is a leap of the imagination from what is known to what has never been before.
As quoted in French Strother, 'The Modern Profession of Inventing', World's Work and Play (Jul 1905), 6, No. 32, 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Imagination (349)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Leap (57)  |  Quality (139)

[A]ll the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world,... could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious and so ridiculous as a lobster.
The Water-babies (1886), 161.
Science quotes on:  |  Boil (24)  |  Curious (95)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lobster (5)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Wit (61)  |  World (1850)

[Before the time of Benjamin Peirce it never occurred to anyone that mathematical research] was one of the things for which a mathematical department existed. Today it is a commonplace in all the leading universities. Peirce stood alone—a mountain peak whose absolute height might be hard to measure, but which towered above all the surrounding country.
In 'The Story of Mathematics at Harvard', Harvard Alumni Bulletin (3 Jan 1924), 26, 376. Cited by R. C. Archibald in 'Benjamin Peirce: V. Biographical Sketch', The American Mathematical Monthly (Jan 1925), 32, No. 1, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Alone (324)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Country (269)  |  Department (93)  |  Exist (458)  |  Hard (246)  |  Height (33)  |  Leading (17)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Occurred (2)  |  Peak (20)  |  Benjamin Peirce (11)  |  Research (753)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tower (45)  |  University (130)

[Benjamin Peirce's] lectures were not easy to follow. They were never carefully prepared. The work with which he rapidly covered the blackboard was very illegible, marred with frequent erasures, and not infrequent mistakes (he worked too fast for accuracy). He was always ready to digress from the straight path and explore some sidetrack that had suddenly attracted his attention, but which was likely to have led nowhere when the college bell announced the close of the hour and we filed out, leaving him abstractedly staring at his work, still with chalk and eraser in his hands, entirely oblivious of his departing class.
Writing as a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, a former student of Peirce, in 'Benjamin Peirce: II. Reminiscences', The American Mathematical Monthly (Jan 1925), 32, No. 1, 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Attention (196)  |  Attracted (3)  |  Bell (35)  |  Blackboard (11)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Chalk (9)  |  Class (168)  |  Close (77)  |  College (71)  |  Covered (5)  |  Departing (2)  |  Easy (213)  |  Eraser (2)  |  Fast (49)  |  Follow (389)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Hour (192)  |  Infrequent (2)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Marred (3)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Oblivious (9)  |  Path (159)  |  Prepared (5)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Staring (3)  |  Still (614)  |  Straight (75)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Work (1402)

[Civilization] is a highly complicated invention which has probably been made only once. If it perished it might never be made again. … But it is a poor thing. And if it to be improved there is no hope save in science.
In The Inequality of Man: And Other Essays (1937), 141.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Hope (321)  |  Improve (64)  |  Invention (400)  |  Perish (56)  |  Poor (139)  |  Save (126)  |  Thing (1914)

[Concerning] mr Kirwan’s charming treatise on manures. Science never appears so beautiful as when applied to the uses of human life, nor any use of it so engaging as agriculture & domestic economy.
Letter (23 Mar 1798) from Jefferson in Philadelphia to William Strickland. In The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 January 1798 to 31 January 1799 (2003), 211. Jefferson was thanking Strickland, who had sent him a copy of Kirwan’s treatise.
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Appear (122)  |  Applied (176)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Charming (4)  |  Concern (239)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Economy (59)  |  Human (1512)  |  Richard Kirwan (3)  |  Life (1870)  |  Manure (8)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Use (771)

[Concerning] the usual contempt with which an orthodox analytic group treats all outsiders and strangers ... I urge you to think of the young psychoanalysts as your colleagues, collaborators and partners and not as spies, traitors and wayward children. You can never develop a science that way, only an orthodox church.
Letter to a colleague (Nov 1960). In Colin Wilson, New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution (1972, 2001), 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Analytic (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Church (64)  |  Collaborator (2)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Orthodox (4)  |  Outsider (7)  |  Partner (5)  |  Psychoanalyst (4)  |  Spy (9)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Traitor (3)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wayward (3)  |  Young (253)

[Dubious attribution] I was wise enough never to grow up, while fooling most people into believing that I had.
Although seen widely circulated on the web, Webmaster has so far been unable to verify any primary source. Found in few books, but without any citation, for example as early as Joel Goodman, Laffirmations: 1001 Ways to Add Humor to Your Life and Work (1995), 305.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Enough (341)  |  Grow (247)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Wise (143)

[For the] increase of knowledge and … the useful application of the knowledge gained, … there never is a sudden beginning; even the cloud change which portends the thunderstorm begins slowly.
From address, 'A Medical Retrospect'. Published in Yale Medical Journal (Oct 1910), 17, No. 2, 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Gain (146)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Portend (2)  |  Progress (492)  |  Slow (108)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Thunderstorm (7)  |  Useful (260)

[I was advised] to read Jordan's 'Cours d'analyse'; and I shall never forget the astonishment with which I read that remarkable work, the first inspiration for so many mathematicians of my generation, and learnt for the first time as I read it what mathematics really meant.
In A Mathematician’s Apology (1940, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishment (30)  |  First (1302)  |  Forget (125)  |  Generation (256)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Read (308)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

[I]magine you want to know the sex of your unborn child. There are several approaches. You could, for example, do what the late film star ... Cary Grant did before he was an actor: In a carnival or fair or consulting room, you suspend a watch or a plumb bob above the abdomen of the expectant mother; if it swings left-right it's a boy, and if it swings forward-back it's a girl. The method works one time in two. Of course he was out of there before the baby was born, so he never heard from customers who complained he got it wrong. ... But if you really want to know, then you go to amniocentesis, or to sonograms; and there your chance of being right is 99 out of 100. ... If you really want to know, you go to science.
In 'Wonder and Skepticism', Skeptical Enquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abdomen (6)  |  Actor (9)  |  Approach (112)  |  Baby (29)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boy (100)  |  Carnival (2)  |  Chance (244)  |  Child (333)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Consulting (13)  |  Course (413)  |  Customer (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fair (16)  |  Forward (104)  |  Girl (38)  |  Grant (76)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Late (119)  |  Method (531)  |  Mother (116)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Right (473)  |  Sex (68)  |  Star (460)  |  Swing (12)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unborn (5)  |  Want (504)  |  Watch (118)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

[In childhood, to overcome fear, the] need took me back again and again to a sycamore tree rising from the earth at the edge of a ravine. It was a big, old tree that had grown out over the ravine, so that when you climbed it, you looked straight down fifty feet or more. Every time I climbed that tree, I forced myself to climb to the last possible safe limb and then look down. Every time I did it, I told myself I’d never do it again. But I kept going back because it scared me and I had to know I could overcome that.
In John Glenn and Nick Taylor, John Glenn: A Memoir (2000), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Climb (39)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Edge (51)  |  Fear (212)  |  Force (497)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Limb (9)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  Need (320)  |  Old (499)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Possible (560)  |  Ravine (5)  |  Rising (44)  |  Safe (61)  |  Scared (2)  |  Straight (75)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)

[In the case of research director, Willis R. Whitney, whose style was to give talented investigators as much freedom as possible, you may define “serendipity” as] the art of profiting from unexpected occurrences. When you do things in that way you get unexpected results. Then you do something else and you get unexpected results in another line, and you do that on a third line and then all of a sudden you see that one of these lines has something to do with the other. Then you make a discovery that you never could have made by going on a direct road.
Quoted in Guy Suits, 'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 355.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profit (56)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Serendipity (17)  |  Something (718)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Way (1214)  |  Willis R. Whitney (17)

[J.J.] Sylvester’s methods! He had none. “Three lectures will be delivered on a New Universal Algebra,” he would say; then, “The course must be extended to twelve.” It did last all the rest of that year. The following year the course was to be Substitutions-Théorie, by Netto. We all got the text. He lectured about three times, following the text closely and stopping sharp at the end of the hour. Then he began to think about matrices again. “I must give one lecture a week on those,” he said. He could not confine himself to the hour, nor to the one lecture a week. Two weeks were passed, and Netto was forgotten entirely and never mentioned again. Statements like the following were not unfrequent in his lectures: “I haven’t proved this, but I am as sure as I can be of anything that it must be so. From this it will follow, etc.” At the next lecture it turned out that what he was so sure of was false. Never mind, he kept on forever guessing and trying, and presently a wonderful discovery followed, then another and another. Afterward he would go back and work it all over again, and surprise us with all sorts of side lights. He then made another leap in the dark, more treasures were discovered, and so on forever.
As quoted by Florian Cajori, in Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 265-266.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Back (395)  |  Confine (26)  |  Course (413)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  End (603)  |  Extend (129)  |  False (105)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forever (111)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Go Back (4)  |  Guess (67)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hour (192)  |  Keep (104)  |  Last (425)  |  Leap (57)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Light (635)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matrix (14)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mentioned (3)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Pass (241)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Statement (148)  |  Surprise (91)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turn Out (9)  |  Two (936)  |  Universal (198)  |  Week (73)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

[L]et us not overlook the further great fact, that not only does science underlie sculpture, painting, music, poetry, but that science is itself poetic. The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. … On the contrary science opens up realms of poetry where to the unscientific all is a blank. Those engaged in scientific researches constantly show us that they realize not less vividly, but more vividly, than others, the poetry of their subjects. Whoever will dip into Hugh Miller’s works on geology, or read Mr. Lewes's “Seaside Studies,” will perceive that science excites poetry rather than extinguishes it. And whoever will contemplate the life of Goethe will see that the poet and the man of science can co-exist in equal activity. Is it not, indeed, an absurd and almost a sacrilegious belief that the more a man studies Nature the less he reveres it? Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses anything in the eye of the physicist who knows that its elements are held together by a force which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a flash of lightning? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake, does not suggest higher associations to one who has seen through a microscope the wondrously varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals? Think you that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of a geologist, who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million years ago? The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded. Whoever has not in youth collected plants and insects, knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedge-rows can assume. Whoever has not sought for fossils, has little idea of the poetical associations that surround the places where imbedded treasures were found. Whoever at the seaside has not had a microscope and aquarium, has yet to learn what the highest pleasures of the seaside are. Sad, indeed, is it to see how men occupy themselves with trivialities, and are indifferent to the grandest phenomena—care not to understand the architecture of the Heavens, but are deeply interested in some contemptible controversy about the intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots!—are learnedly critical over a Greek ode, and pass by without a glance that grand epic written by the finger of God upon the strata of the Earth!
In Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (1889), 82-83.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Activity (218)  |  Aquarium (2)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Association (49)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blank (14)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Collection (68)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Critical (73)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Current (122)  |  Delusion (26)  |  Drop (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Enter (145)  |  Epic (12)  |  Excitation (9)  |  Exist (458)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flash (49)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glacier (17)  |  Glance (36)  |  God (776)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Grandest (10)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greek (109)  |  Halo (7)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hedgerow (2)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insect (89)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  George Henry Lewes (22)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Lose (165)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marked (55)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Hugh Miller (18)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ode (3)  |  Open (277)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Painting (46)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pass (241)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Read (308)  |  Realize (157)  |  Realm (87)  |  Research (753)  |  Rock (176)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sculpture (12)  |  Seaside (2)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Snow (39)  |  Snowflake (15)  |  Strata (37)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unscientific (13)  |  Vividly (11)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Water (503)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

[My Book] will endeavour to establish the principle[s] of reasoning in ... [geology]; and all my geology will come in as illustration of my views of those principles, and as evidence strengthening the system necessarily arising out of the admission of such principles, which... are neither more nor less than that no causes whatever have from the earliest time to which we can look back, to the present, ever acted, but those now acting; and that they never acted with different degrees of energy from that which they now exert.
Letter to Roderick Murchison Esq. (15 Jan 1829). In Mrs Lyell (ed.), The Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart (1881), Vol. 1, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Admission (17)  |  Arising (22)  |  Back (395)  |  Book (413)  |  Cause (561)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exert (40)  |  Geology (240)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uniformitarianism (9)  |  View (496)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

[My] numberless observations... made on the Strata... [have] made me confident of their uniformity throughout this Country & [have] led me to conclude that the same regularity... will be found to extend to every part of the Globe for Nature has done nothing by piecemeal. [T]here is no inconsistency in her productions. [T]he Horse never becomes an Ass nor the Crab an Apple by any intermixture or artificial combination whatever[. N]or will the Oak ever degenerate into an Ash or an Ash into an Elm. [H]owever varied by Soil or Climate the species will still be distinct on this ground. [T]hen I argue that what is found here may be found elsewhere[.] When proper allowances are made for such irregularities as often occur and the proper situation and natural agreement is well understood I am satisfied there will be no more difficulty in ascertaining the true quality of the Strata and the place of its possition [sic] than there is now in finding the true Class and Character of Plants by the Linean [sic] System.
Natural Order of the Strata in England and Wales Accurately Delineated and Described, unpublished manuscript, Department of Geology, University of Oxford, 1801, f. 7v.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Allowance (6)  |  Apple (46)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Ash (21)  |  Ass (5)  |  Become (821)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Climate (102)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Confident (25)  |  Country (269)  |  Crab (6)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Elm (4)  |  Extend (129)  |  Ground (222)  |  Horse (78)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Oak (16)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occur (151)  |  Piecemeal (3)  |  Plant (320)  |  Production (190)  |  Proper (150)  |  Quality (139)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Situation (117)  |  Soil (98)  |  Species (435)  |  Still (614)  |  Strata (37)  |  System (545)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Understood (155)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

[Nature] is complete, but never finished.
As quoted by T.H. Huxley, in Norman Lockyer (ed.), 'Nature: Aphorisms by Goethe', Nature (1870), 1, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Complete (209)  |  Finish (62)  |  Nature (2017)

[On mediocrity] What we have today is a retreat into low-level goodness. Men are all working hard building barbecues, being devoted to their wives and spending time with their children. Many of us feel, “We never had it so good!” After three wars and a depression, we’re impressed by the rising curve. All we want is it not to blow up.
As quoted in interview with Frances Glennon, 'Student and Teacher of Human Ways', Life (14 Sep 1959), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Barbecue (2)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blow (45)  |  Blow Up (8)  |  Building (158)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Curve (49)  |  Depression (26)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Feel (371)  |  Good (906)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Hard (246)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Low (86)  |  Mediocrity (8)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Rising (44)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spending (24)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Want (504)  |  War (233)  |  Wife (41)

[On the 11th day of November 1572], in the evening, after sunset, when, according to my habit, I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky, I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing all others in brilliancy, was shining almost directly over my head; and since I had, almost from boyhood, known all the stars of the heavens perfectly (there is no great difficulty in gaining that knowledge), it was quite evident to me that there had never before been any star in that place in the sky, even the smallest, to say nothing of a star so conspicuously bright as this. I was so astonished at this sight that I was not ashamed to doubt the trustworthiness of my own eyes. But when I observed that others, too, on having the place pointed out to them, could see that there was a star there, I had no further doubts. A miracle indeed, either the greatest of all that have occurred in the whole range of nature since the beginning of the world, or one certainly that is to be classed with those attested by the Holy Oracles.
De Stello. Nova (On the New Star) (1573). Quoted in H. Shapley and A. E. Howarth (eds.), Source Book in Astronomy (1929), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bright (81)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Class (168)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Evident (92)  |  Eye (440)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Holy (35)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nova (7)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Range (104)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Shining (35)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surpassing (12)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

[Otto Struve] made the remark once that he never looked at the spectrum of a star, any star, where he didn’t find something important to work on.
'Oral History Transcript: Dr. William Wilson Morgan' (8 Aug 1978) in the Niels Bohr Library & Archives.
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  Importance (299)  |  Look (584)  |  Remark (28)  |  Research (753)  |  Something (718)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Work (1402)

[Pure mathematics is] good to give chills in the spine to a certain number of people, me included. I don’t know what else it is good for, and I don’t care. But … like von Neumann said, one never knows whether someone is going to find another use for it.
In The Beauty of Doing Mathematics: Three Public Dialogues (1985), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chill (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  Good (906)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Spine (9)  |  Use (771)  |  John von Neumann (29)

[Saint-Gaudens and Matthew Arnold] felt a railway train as power; yet they, and all other artists, constantly complained that the power embodied in a railway train could never be embodied in art. All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres.
After viewing the Palace of Electricity at the 1900 Trocadero Exposition in Paris. In The Education of Henry Brooks Adams: An Autobiography (1918), 388.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Build (211)  |  Energy (373)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Railway (19)  |  Saint (17)  |  Steam (81)  |  Train (118)  |  Virgin (11)  |  World (1850)

[The Elements] are mutually bound together, the lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that they cannot fly off; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending upwards, the heavier are so suspended, that they cannot fall down. Thus, by an equal tendency in an opposite direction, each of them remains in its appropriate place, bound together by the never-ceasing revolution of the world.
In The Natural History of Pliny (1855), Vol. 1, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Direction (185)  |  Down (455)  |  Element (322)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fly (153)  |  Heavier (2)  |  Lighter (2)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Suspended (5)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Together (392)  |  Upward (44)  |  Upwards (6)  |  World (1850)

[The new term] Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward that I think I shall never use it. The equivalent of three separate sounds of i in one word is too much.
Quoted in Sydney Ross, Nineteenth-Century Attitudes: Men of Science (1991), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Awkward (11)  |  Biography (254)  |  Both (496)  |  Ear (69)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Mouth (54)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Separate (151)  |  Sound (187)  |  Term (357)  |  Think (1122)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

[The screw machine] was on the principle of the guage or sliding lathe now in every workshop throughout the world; the perfection of which consists in that most faithful agent gravity, making the joint, and that almighty perfect number three, which is in harmony itself. I was young when I learned that principle. I had never seen my grandmother putting a chip under a three-legged milking-stool; but she always had to put a chip under a four-legged table, to keep it steady. I cut screws of all dimensions by this machine, and did them perfectly. (1846)
Quoted in ASME International and Heritage Committee, Landmarks in Mechanical Engineering.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Almighty (23)  |  Consist (223)  |  Cut (116)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Joint (31)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfect Number (6)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Principle (530)  |  Screw (17)  |  Steady (45)  |  Table (105)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Workshop (14)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)

[The] great fairy Science, who is likely to be queen of all the fairies for many a year to come, can only do you good, and never do you harm…
The Water-babies (1886), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Year (963)

[The] second fundamental rule of historical science may be thus simply expressed:—we should not wish to explain every thing. Historical tradition must never be abandoned in the philosophy of history—otherwise we lose all firm ground and footing. But historical tradition, ever so accurately conceived and carefully sifted, doth not always, especially in the early and primitive ages, bring with it a full and demonstrative certainty.
In Friedrich von Schlegel and James Burton Robertson (trans.), The Philosophy of History (1835), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Age (509)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Early (196)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Express (192)  |  Firm (47)  |  Footing (2)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Ground (222)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Lose (165)  |  Must (1525)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Rule (307)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Wish (216)

[The] seminary spirit of minerals hath its proper wombs where it resides, and is like a Prince or Emperour, whose prescripts both Elements and matter must obey; and it is never idle, but always in action, producing and maintaining natural substances, untill they have fulfilled their destiny.
A Discourse of Natural Bathes, and Mineral Waters (1669), 104.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Both (496)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Element (322)  |  Idle (34)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Obey (46)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reside (25)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Substance (253)  |  Womb (25)

[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits.
Presidential Address to the Chemical Society (16 Apr 1936), Journal of the Chemical Society (1936), 533.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Atom (381)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Definite (114)  |  Development (441)  |  Different (595)  |  Double (18)  |  Element (322)  |  Extreme (78)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Isomer (6)  |  Joining (11)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Link (48)  |  Linkage (5)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Number (710)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Permit (61)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Regular (48)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Short (200)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Table (105)  |  Tetrahedron (4)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Valency (4)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

[Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man.
'Thomas Henry Huxley.' In the Baltimore Evening Sun (4 May 1925). Reprinted in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 157.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Century (319)  |  Character (259)  |  Colossal (15)  |  Courage (82)  |  England (43)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatest (330)  |  High (370)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Indomitable (4)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moon (252)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)

[When nature appears complicated:] The moment we contemplate it as it is, and attain a position from which we can take a commanding view, though but of a small part of its plan, we never fail to recognize that sublime simplicity on which the mind rests satisfied that it has attained the truth.
Concluding remark in Dionysius Lardner (ed.), Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Vol 1, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831), 361.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Fail (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Plan (122)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Rest (287)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Truth (1109)  |  View (496)

[As Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Ministry of Defence] We persist in regarding ourselves as a Great Power, capable of everything and only temporarily handicapped by economic difficulties. We are not a great power and never will be again. We are a great nation, but if we continue to behave like a Great Power we shall soon cease to be a great nation. Let us take warning from the fate of the Great Powers of the past and not burst ourselves with pride (see Aesop’s fable of the frog). (1949)
As quoted by Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (1989), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Behave (18)  |  British (42)  |  Burst (41)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cease (81)  |  Chief (99)  |  Continue (179)  |  Defence (16)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fable (12)  |  Fate (76)  |  Frog (44)  |  Great (1610)  |  Handicap (7)  |  Handicapped (7)  |  Nation (208)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Past (355)  |  Persist (13)  |  Power (771)  |  Pride (84)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Soon (187)  |  Warning (18)  |  Will (2350)

Forging differs from hoaxing, inasmuch as in the later the deceit is intended to last for a time, and then be discovered, to the ridicule of those who have credited it; whereas the forger is one who, wishing to acquire a reputation for science, records observations which he has never made.
Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (1830). In Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, Statistics and Truth (1997), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Deceit (7)  |  Differ (88)  |  Discover (571)  |  Forgery (3)  |  Last (425)  |  Observation (593)  |  Record (161)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Time (1911)

Il est impossible de contempler le spectacle de l’univers étoilé sans se demander comment il s’est formé: nous devions peut-être attendre pour chercher une solution que nous ayons patiemment rassemblé les éléments …mais si nous étions si raisonnables, si nous étions curieux sans impatience, il est probable que nous n’avions jamais créé la Science et que nous nous serions toujours contentés de vivre notre petite vie. Notre esprit a donc reclamé impérieusement cette solution bien avant qu’elle fut mûre, et alors qu’il ne possédait que de vagues lueurs, lui permettant de la deviner plutôt que de l’attendre.
It is impossible to contemplate the spectacle of the starry universe without wondering how it was formed: perhaps we ought to wait, and not look for a solution until have patiently assembled the elements … but if we were so reasonable, if we were curious without impatience, it is probable we would never have created Science and we would always have been content with a trivial existence. Thus the mind has imperiously laid claim to this solution long before it was ripe, even while perceived in only faint glimmers—allowing us to guess a solution rather than wait for it.
From Leçons sur les Hypothèses Consmogoniques (1913) as cited in D. Ter Haar and A.G.W. Cameron, 'Historical Review of Theories of the Origin of the Solar System', collected in Robert Jastrow and A. G. W. Cameron (eds.), Origin of the Solar System: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, January 23-24, 1962, (1963), 3. 'Cosmogonical Hypotheses' (1913), collected in Harlow Shapley, Source Book in Astronomy, 1900-1950 (1960), 347.
Science quotes on:  |  Assemble (14)  |  Claim (154)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Content (75)  |  Created (6)  |  Curious (95)  |  Element (322)  |  Existence (481)  |  Faint (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Glimmer (5)  |  Guess (67)  |  Impatience (13)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Patience (58)  |  Perceived (4)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Ripe (5)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vague (50)  |  Wait (66)  |  Wonder (251)

Il ne fallait jamais faire des expériences pour confirmer ses idées, mais simplement pour les contrôler.
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
From Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale (1865), 67-68. Translation from Henry Copley Green, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1957), 38. Bernard footnoted that he had expressed this idea earlier in Leçons sur les propriétés et les altérations des liquides de l’organisme (1859), Première leçon.
Science quotes on:  |  Confirm (58)  |  Control (182)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Idea (881)  |  Must (1525)

Indiana Jones: Archaeology is the search for fact… not truth. If it’s truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree’s philosophy class is right down the hall. … So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and “X” never, ever marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading.
Spoken by actor Harrison Ford as character Indiana Jones in movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
Science quotes on:  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Class (168)  |  Digging (11)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forget (125)  |  Idea (881)  |  Library (53)  |  Looking (191)  |  Map (50)  |  Movie (21)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  Search (175)  |  Travel (125)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

La nature veut que dans certains temps les hommes se succèdent les uns aux autres par le moyen de la mort; il leur est permis de se défendre contr’elle jusqu’à un certain point; mais passé cela, on aura beau faire de nouvelles découvertes dans l’Anatomie, on aura beau pénétrer de plus en plus dans les secrets de la structure du corps humain, on ne prendra point la Nature pour dupe, on mourra comme à l’ordinaire.
Nature intends that at fixed periods men should succeed each other by the instrumentality of death. They are allowed to keep it at bay up to a certain point; but when that is passed, it will be of no use to make new discoveries in anatomy, or to penetrate more and more into the secrets of the structure of the human body; we shall never outwit nature, we shall die as usual.
In 'Dialogue 5: Dialogues De Morts Anciens', Nouveaux Dialogues des Morts (2nd Ed., 1683), Vol. 1, 154-155. As translated in Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Death (406)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dupe (5)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Intend (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outwit (6)  |  Pass (241)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Period (200)  |  Plus (43)  |  Point (584)  |  Secret (216)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

Les mathématiciens parviennent à la solution d’un problême par le simple arrangement des données, & en réduisant le raisonnement à des opérations si simples, à des jugemens si courts, qu’ils ne perdent jamais de vue l’évidence qui leur sert de guide.
Mathematicians come to the solution of a problem by the simple arrangement of the data, and reducing the reasoning to such simple operations, to judgments so brief, that they never lose sight of the evidence that serves as their guide.
From a paper read to the Académie Royales des Sciences (18 Apr 1787), printed in Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique (1787), 12. Translation from the French by Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Brief (37)  |  Court (35)  |  Data (162)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Guide (107)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Sight (135)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)

Mahomet’s tombe at Mecha is said strangely to hang up, attracted by some invisible Loadstone, but the Memory of this Doctor will never fall to the ground, which his incomparable Book ‘De Magnete’ will support to Eternity.
In The History of the The Worthies of England (1662, 1840), Vol. 1, 515.
Science quotes on:  |  Attract (25)  |  Book (413)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fall (243)  |  William Gilbert (10)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hang (46)  |  Incomparable (14)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Mecca (3)  |  Memory (144)  |  Strange (160)  |  Support (151)  |  Tomb (15)  |  Will (2350)

Nature is curious, and such worke may make,
That our dull sense can never finde, but scape.
For Creatures, small as Atomes, may be there,
If every Atome a Creatures Figure beare.
If foure Atomes a World can make, then see
What severall Worlds might in an Eare--ring bee:
For Millions of these Atomes may bee in
The Head of one Small, little, Single Pin.
And if thus Small, then Ladies may well weare
A World of Worlds, as Pendents in each Eare.
From 'Of Many Worlds in this World', in Poems and Fancies (1653), 44-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Bee (44)  |  Creature (242)  |  Curious (95)  |  Dull (58)  |  Figure (162)  |  Little (717)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pin (20)  |  Poetry (150)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  World (1850)

Question: If you walk on a dry path between two walls a few feet apart, you hear a musical note or “ring” at each footstep. Whence comes this?
Answer: This is similar to phosphorescent paint. Once any sound gets between two parallel reflectors or walls, it bounds from one to the other and never stops for a long time. Hence it is persistent, and when you walk between the walls you hear the sounds made by those who walked there before you. By following a muffin man down the passage within a short time you can hear most distinctly a musical note, or, as it is more properly termed in the question, a “ring” at every (other) step.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 175-6, Question 2. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Before (8)  |  Bound (120)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Examination (102)  |  Following (16)  |  Footstep (5)  |  Hear (144)  |  Howler (15)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Note (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paint (22)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Passage (52)  |  Path (159)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Phosphorescent (3)  |  Question (649)  |  Reflector (4)  |  Short (200)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  Step (234)  |  Stop (89)  |  Term (357)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wall (71)

Question: What is the difference between a “real” and a “virtual” image? Give a drawing showing the formation of one of each kind.
Answer: You see a real image every morning when you shave. You do not see virtual images at all. The only people who see virtual images are those people who are not quite right, like Mrs. A. Virtual images are things which don't exist. I can't give you a reliable drawing of a virtual image, because I never saw one.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 177-8, Question 6. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Formation (100)  |  Howler (15)  |  Image (97)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Morning (98)  |  People (1031)  |  Question (649)  |  Real (159)  |  Reliability (18)  |  Right (473)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Shave (2)  |  Showing (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Virtual (5)

Qui ergo munitam vult habere navem habet etiam acum jaculo suppositam. Rotabitur enim et circumvolvetur acus, donec cuspis acus respiciat orientem sicque comprehendunt quo tendere debeant nautaw cum Cynosura latet in aeris turbatione; quamvis ad occasum numquam tendat, propter circuli brevitatem.
If then one wishes a ship well provided with all things, then one must have also a needle mounted on a dart. The needle will be oscillated and turn until the point of the needle directs itself to the East* [North], thus making known to sailors the route which they should hold while the Little Bear is concealed from them by the vicissitudes of the atmosphere; for it never disappears under the horizon because of the smallness of the circle it describes.
Latin text from Thomas Wright, 'De Utensilibus', A Volume of Vocabularies, (1857) as cited with translation in Park Benjamin, The Intellectual Rise in Electricity: A History (1895), 129.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bear (162)  |  Circle (117)  |  Compass (37)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Describe (132)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Known (453)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Making (300)  |  Mount (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Point (584)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Ship (69)  |  Smallness (7)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vicissitude (6)  |  Will (2350)

Qui est de nous & qui seul peut nous égarer; à le mettre continuellement à épreuve de l'expérience; à ne conserver que les faits qui ne font que des données de la nature , & qui ne peuvent nous tromper; à ne chercher la vérité que dans l'enchaînement naturel des expériences & des observations
We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.
From the original French in Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789, 1793), discours préliminaire, x; and from edition translated into English by Robert Kerr, as Elements of Chemistry (1790), Preface, xviii.
Science quotes on:  |  Deceive (26)  |  Deception (9)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Present (630)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Search (175)  |  Test (221)  |  Trust (72)  |  Truth (1109)

Sir Robert Chiltern: You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women?
Mrs. Cheveley: Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it in this world.
In play, An Ideal Husband (1912, 2001), Act 1, 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Future (467)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Irrational (16)  |  Problem (731)  |  Think (1122)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

Steckt keine Poesie in der Lokomotive, die brausend durch die Nacht zieht und über die zitternde Erde hintobt, als wollte sie Raum und Zeit zermalmen, in dem hastigen, aber wohl geregelten Zucken und Zerren ihrer gewaltigen Glieder, in dem stieren, nur auf ein Ziel losstürmenden Blick ihrer roten Augen, in dem emsigen, willenlosen Gefolge der Wagen, die kreischend und klappernd, aber mit unfehlbarer Sicherheit dem verkörperten Willen aus Eisen und Stahl folge leisten?
Is there no poetry in the locomotive roaring through the night and charging over the quivering earth as if it wanted to crush time and space? Is there no poetry in the hasty but regular jerking and tugging of its powerful limbs, in the stare of its red eyes that never lose sight of their goal? Is there no poetry in the bustling, will-less retinue of cars that follow, screeching and clattering with unmistakable surety, the steel and iron embodiment of will?
Max Eyth
From 'Poesie und Technik' (1904) (Poetry and Technology), in Schweizerische Techniker-Zeitung (1907), Vol 4, 306, as translated in Paul A. Youngman, Black Devil and Iron Angel: The Railway in Nineteenth-Century German Realism (2005), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Car (75)  |  Crush (19)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Embodiment (9)  |  Eye (440)  |  Follow (389)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hasty (7)  |  Iron (99)  |  Limb (9)  |  Locomotive (8)  |  Lose (165)  |  Night (133)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Quivering (2)  |  Red (38)  |  Regular (48)  |  Retinue (3)  |  Sight (135)  |  Space (523)  |  Stare (9)  |  Steel (23)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Unmistakable (6)  |  Want (504)  |  Wanted (4)  |  Will (2350)

That the general characters of the big group to which the embryo belongs appear in development earlier than the special characters. In agreement with this is the fact that the vesicular form is the most general form of all; for what is common in a greater degree to all animals than the opposition of an internal and an external surface?
The less general structural relations are formed after the more general, and so on until the most special appear.
The embryo of any given form, instead of passing through the state of other definite forms, on the contrary separates itself from them.

Fundamentally the embryo of a higher animal form never resembles the adult of another animal form, but only its embryo.
Über Entwicklungsgeschichte der Thiere: Beobachtung und Reflexion (1828), 224. Trans. E. S. Russell, Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology (1916), 125-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Animal (651)  |  Belong (168)  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Definite (114)  |  Degree (277)  |  Development (441)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Greater (288)  |  Internal (69)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passing (76)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Separate (151)  |  Special (188)  |  State (505)  |  Structural (29)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)

Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
First Fisherman: Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale; a’ plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful: such whales have I heard on o’ the land, who never leave gaping till they’ve swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all.
In Pericles (1609), Act 2, Scene 1, line 29-38.
Science quotes on:  |  Bell (35)  |  Church (64)  |  Compare (76)  |  Devour (29)  |  Do (1905)  |  Driving (28)  |  Eat (108)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fisherman (9)  |  Great (1610)  |  Last (425)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Master (182)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Poor (139)  |  Sea (326)  |  Steeple (4)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Whale (45)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)

CALPURNIA: When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
CAESAR: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I have yet heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Julius Caesar (1599), II, ii.
Science quotes on:  |  Beggar (5)  |  Blaze (14)  |  Comet (65)  |  Coward (5)  |  Death (406)  |  End (603)  |  Fear (212)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Prince (13)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Small (489)  |  Strange (160)  |  Taste (93)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)

~~[Attributed without source; Very dubious]~~ You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10-12 to 1.
Often seen, virally spread, but always without a source citation. If you can provide a primary source, please contact Webmaster. Until then the quote should be regarded as not authenticated. The odds are seen variously expressed as “10-12”, “10 or 12”, “1012”, “10^12”, or “trillion”. [All this sloppiness makes the quote a very dubious one. —Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Bet (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Odds (6)

~~[Attributed]~~ A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
As quoted, without citation, in William Joseph Grace, Art of Communicating Ideas (1952), 389. Sadly, much searching produces no primary source. Can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Car (75)  |  Education (423)  |  Freight (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Railroad (36)  |  School (227)  |  Steal (14)  |  University (130)  |  Whole (756)

1066. … At that time, throughout all England, a portent such as men had never seen before was seen in the heavens. Some declared that the star was a comet, which some call “the long-haired star”: it first appeared on the eve of the festival of Letania Maior, that is on 24 April, and shone every night for a week.
In George Norman Garmonsway (ed., trans.), 'The Parker Chronicle', The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1953), 195. This translation from the original Saxon, is a modern printing of an ancient anthology known as The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Manuscript copies were held at various English monasteries. These copies of the Chronicle include content first recorded in the late 9th century. The monasteries continued independently updating these annals. This quote comes from a copy once owned by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Known as the Winchester (or Parker) Chronicle, it is the oldest surviving manuscript.
Science quotes on:  |  April (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Comet (65)  |  Declared (24)  |  England (43)  |  Eve (4)  |  Festival (2)  |  First (1302)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Long (778)  |  Night (133)  |  Portent (2)  |  Shine (49)  |  Star (460)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Week (73)

A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created.
Journal of Researches: Into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. BeagIe Round the World (1839), ch. XVI, 369.
Science quotes on:  |  Association (49)  |  Bad (185)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Crust (43)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Hour (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Solid (119)  |  Strange (160)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

A conceptual scheme is never discarded merely because of a few stubborn facts with which it cannot be reconciled; a conceptual scheme is either modified or replaced by a better one, never abandoned with nothing left to take its place.
Science and Common Sense (1951), 173.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Better (493)  |  Discard (32)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Merely (315)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Stubborn (14)  |  Theory (1015)

A favourite piece of advice [by William Gull] to his students was, “never disregard what a mother says;” he knew the mother’s instinct, and her perception, quickened by love, would make her a keen observer.
Stated in Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), xxiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Disregard (12)  |  Favourite (7)  |  Sir William Withey Gull (39)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Love (328)  |  Mother (116)  |  Observer (48)  |  Perception (97)  |  Say (989)  |  Student (317)

A few days ago, a Master of Arts, who is still a young man, and therefore the recipient of a modern education, stated to me that until he had reached the age of twenty he had never been taught anything whatever regarding natural phenomena, or natural law. Twelve years of his life previously had been spent exclusively amongst the ancients. The case, I regret to say, is typical. Now we cannot, without prejudice to humanity, separate the present from the past.
'On the Study of Physics', From a Lecture delivered in the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the Spring of 1854. Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews (1892), Vol. 1, 284-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Education (423)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Present (630)  |  Previous (17)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recipient (3)  |  Regret (31)  |  Say (989)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Spent (85)  |  Statement (148)  |  Still (614)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Twelve (4)  |  Twenty (4)  |  Typical (16)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

A fool, Mr, Edgeworth, is one who has never made an experiment.
Remark to Richard Lovell Edgeworth, as quoted by W. Stanley Jevons in ‘Experimental Legislation’, Popular Science (Apr 1880), 16, 754.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fool (121)

A government, at bottom, is nothing more than a gang of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior men ... Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent. Indeed, it would not be far wrong to describe the best as the common enemy of all decent citizens.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Arbitrary (27)  |  Bad (185)  |  Best (467)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Common (447)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Decent (12)  |  Describe (132)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Failure (176)  |  Far (158)  |  Gang (4)  |  Good (906)  |  Government (116)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Practical (225)  |  Really (77)  |  Tolerable (2)  |  Unintelligent (2)  |  Worst (57)  |  Wrong (246)

A harmless and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words (1865), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)

A hundred years ago, Auguste Compte, … a great philosopher, said that humans will never be able to visit the stars, that we will never know what stars are made out of, that that's the one thing that science will never ever understand, because they're so far away. And then, just a few years later, scientists took starlight, ran it through a prism, looked at the rainbow coming from the starlight, and said: “Hydrogen!” Just a few years after this very rational, very reasonable, very scientific prediction was made, that we'll never know what stars are made of.
Quoted in Nina L. Diamond, Voices of Truth (2000), 332.
Science quotes on:  |  Coming (114)  |  Auguste Comte (24)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Prism (8)  |  Rainbow (17)  |  Rational (95)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Star (460)  |  Starlight (5)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Affair (29)  |  End (603)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Love (328)  |  Will (2350)

A man of science rises ever, in seeking truth; and if he never finds it in its wholeness, he discovers nevertheless very significant fragments; and these fragments of universal truth are precisely what constitutes science.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1927, 1957), 222. From the original French by Claude Bernard: “le savant monte toujours en cherchant la vérité, et s'il ne la trouve jamais tout entière, il en découvre néanmoins des fragments très-importants, et ce sont précisément ces fragments de la vérité générale qui constituent la science.” (1865), 389. A Google translation gives: “The scientist always rises by seeking the truth, and if he never finds it entirely, he nevertheless discovers very important fragments of it, and it is precisely these fragments of the general truth which constitute science.”
Science quotes on:  |  Constitute (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Discover (571)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Significant (78)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Wholeness (9)

A man who has once looked with the archaeological eye will never see quite normally. He will be wounded by what other men call trifles. It is possible to refine the sense of time until an old shoe in the bunch grass or a pile of nineteenth century beer bottles in an abandoned mining town tolls in one’s head like a hall clock.
The Night Country (1971), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  Abandon (73)  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Beer (10)  |  Bottle (17)  |  Call (781)  |  Century (319)  |  Clock (51)  |  Eye (440)  |  Grass (49)  |  Hall (5)  |  Head (87)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mining (22)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pile (12)  |  Possible (560)  |  Refine (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shoe (12)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toll (3)  |  Town (30)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wound (26)

A man who is convinced of the truth of his religion is indeed never tolerant. At the least, he is to feel pity for the adherent of another religion but usually it does not stop there. The faithful adherent of a religion will try first of all to convince those that believe in another religion and usually he goes on to hatred if he is not successful. However, hatred then leads to persecution when the might of the majority is behind it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adherent (6)  |  Behind (139)  |  Belief (615)  |  Convince (43)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Faithful (13)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Hatred (21)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Lead (391)  |  Least (75)  |  Majority (68)  |  Man (2252)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Pity (16)  |  Religion (369)  |  Stop (89)  |  Successful (134)  |  Tolerant (4)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

A mathematician who can only generalise is like a monkey who can only climb UP a tree. ... And a mathematician who can only specialise is like a monkey who can only climb DOWN a tree. In fact neither the up monkey nor the down monkey is a viable creature. A real monkey must find food and escape his enemies and so must be able to incessantly climb up and down. A real mathematician must be able to generalise and specialise. ... There is, I think, a moral for the teacher. A teacher of traditional mathematics is in danger of becoming a down monkey, and a teacher of modern mathematics an up monkey. The down teacher dishing out one routine problem after another may never get off the ground, never attain any general idea. and the up teacher dishing out one definition after the other may never climb down from his verbiage, may never get down to solid ground, to something of tangible interest for his pupils.
From 'A Story With A Moral', Mathematical Gazette (Jun 1973), 57, No. 400, 86-87
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Climb (39)  |  Creature (242)  |  Danger (127)  |  Definition (238)  |  Down (455)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Escape (85)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Food (213)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Ground (222)  |  Idea (881)  |  Incessant (9)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Real (159)  |  Routine (26)  |  Solid (119)  |  Something (718)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tree (269)  |  Up (5)  |  Verbiage (3)

A mind that is stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions.
Attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Stretch (39)

A noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us.
(1907) As quoted in 'Closing In', Charles Moore, Daniel H. Burnham, Architect, Planner of Cities (1921), Vol. 2, 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Amaze (5)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Do (1905)  |  Future (467)  |  Growing (99)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Noble (93)  |  Record (161)  |  Recorded (2)  |  Remember (189)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of science. At the time I could only regard him with tolerant condescension.
I was sorry of the man who, it seemed to me, was forced to hover about the edges of science. He was compelled to shiver endlessly in the outskirts, getting only feeble warmth from the distant sun of science- in-progress; while I, just beginning my research, was bathed in the heady liquid heat up at the very center of the glow.
In a lifetime of being wrong at many a point, I was never more wrong. It was I, not he, who was wandering in the periphery. It was he, not I, who lived in the blaze.
I had fallen victim to the fallacy of the “growing edge;” the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded and dead.
But is that true? Because a tree in spring buds and comes greenly into leaf, are those leaves therefore the tree? If the newborn twigs and their leaves were all that existed, they would form a vague halo of green suspended in mid-air, but surely that is not the tree. The leaves, by themselves, are no more than trivial fluttering decoration. It is the trunk and limbs that give the tree its grandeur and the leaves themselves their meaning.
There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. “If I have seen further than other men,” said Isaac Newton, “it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”
Adding A Dimension: Seventeen Essays on the History of Science (1964), Introduction.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Air (366)  |  Arise (162)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Behind (139)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certain (557)  |  Condescension (3)  |  Count (107)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Edge (51)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fad (10)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Giant (73)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Green (65)  |  Growing (99)  |  Halo (7)  |  Heat (180)  |  Historian (59)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Hover (8)  |  Insight (107)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mid-Air (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Newborn (5)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Progress (492)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Sparkling (7)  |  Spring (140)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surely (101)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Twig (15)  |  Vague (50)  |  Victim (37)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

A physician advised his patient that had sore eyes, that he should abstain from wine; but the patient said, “I think rather, sir, from wine and water; for I have often marked it in blue eyes, and I have seen water come forth, but never wine.”
In 'A Collection of Apophthegms, New and Old' (1625). As given in Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political: A New Edition, With the Latin Quotations Translated (1813), No. 52, 279.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstain (7)  |  Advice (57)  |  Eye (440)  |  Marked (55)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Sore (4)  |  Tear (48)  |  Think (1122)  |  Water (503)  |  Wine (39)

A school teacher probably never enjoys anything she reads, she is so intently looking for errors.
In Sinner Sermons: A Selection of the Best Paragraphs of E. W. Howe (1926), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Error (339)  |  Intently (2)  |  Looking (191)  |  Read (308)  |  School (227)  |  Teacher (154)

Gordon Lindsay Glegg quote
Background art by Nils86, (cc by-sa 3.0) (source)
A scientist may exhaust himself; he frequently exhausts his colleagues, always exhausts his money, but never exhausts his subject.
In The Development of Design (1981), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Colleague (51)  |  Exhausting (2)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Himself (461)  |  Money (178)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Subject (543)

A sick man talks obsessively about his illness; a healthy man never talks about his health; for as Pirandello points out, we take happiness for granted, and only begin to question life when we are unhappy.
In Introduction to the New Existentialism (1966), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Grant (76)  |  Granted (5)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Health (210)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Illness (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Obsessive (3)  |   Luigi Pirandello (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Sick (83)  |  Talk (108)  |  Unhappy (16)

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
In recent years, this has been widely quoted and cited as an (ancient?) Greek proverb. Seen, for example in, Violence on Television: Hearings Before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance (1994), 340. Webmaster however has so far found no example of this wording in, say, 19th century quotation collections. Which leaves the authenticity of the citation in question. Variations exist (for example “The beginning of wisdom comes when a person plants trees, the shade under which they know they will never sit.” (1993) or “Thoughtless men might ask why an old man plants a tree when he may never hope to sit in its shade” (1954).) However, the general sentiment has indeed existed for a long time. For example, “He that plants Trees, loves others besides himself,” collected in Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs (1731), 91, No. 2248.
Science quotes on:  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Grow (247)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Old (499)  |  Plant (320)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sit (51)  |  Society (350)  |  Tree (269)  |  Wisdom (235)

A student who wishes now-a-days to study geometry by dividing it sharply from analysis, without taking account of the progress which the latter has made and is making, that student no matter how great his genius, will never be a whole geometer. He will not possess those powerful instruments of research which modern analysis puts into the hands of modern geometry. He will remain ignorant of many geometrical results which are to be found, perhaps implicitly, in the writings of the analyst. And not only will he be unable to use them in his own researches, but he will probably toil to discover them himself, and, as happens very often, he will publish them as new, when really he has only rediscovered them.
From 'On Some Recent Tendencies in Geometrical Investigations', Rivista di Matematica (1891), 43. In Bulletin American Mathematical Society (1904), 443.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Discover (571)  |  Divide (77)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Implicit (12)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Making (300)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Possess (157)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Progress (492)  |  Publish (42)  |  Remain (355)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Toil (29)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)

A teacher effects eternity; [s]he can never tell where [her] his influence stops.
The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography? (1918), 300.
Science quotes on:  |  Effect (414)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Influence (231)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Tell (344)

A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown.
Autobiographical Notes (1946), 33. Quoted in Gerald Holton and Yehuda Elkana, Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (1997), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Applicability (7)  |  Area (33)  |  Basic (144)  |  Classical (49)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Content (75)  |  Convincing (9)  |  Deep (241)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extension (60)  |  Framework (33)  |  Greater (288)  |  Impression (118)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Impressiveness (2)  |  Kind (564)  |  More (2558)  |  Overthrown (8)  |  Physical (518)  |  Premise (40)  |  Relation (166)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)

A very sincere and serious freshman student came to my office with a question that had clearly been troubling him deeply. He said to me, ‘I am a devout Christian and have never had any reason to doubt evolution, an idea that seems both exciting and well documented. But my roommate, a proselytizing evangelical, has been insisting with enormous vigor that I cannot be both a real Christian and an evolutionist. So tell me, can a person believe both in God and in evolution?’ Again, I gulped hard, did my intellectual duty, a nd reassured him that evolution was both true and entirely compatible with Christian belief –a position that I hold sincerely, but still an odd situation for a Jewish agnostic.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Agnostic (10)  |  Belief (615)  |  Both (496)  |  Christian (44)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Compatible (4)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Devout (5)  |  Document (7)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Duty (71)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Evolutionist (8)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Freshman (3)  |  God (776)  |  Gulp (3)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hold (96)  |  Idea (881)  |  Insist (22)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Jewish (15)  |  Nd (2)  |  Odd (15)  |  Office (71)  |  Person (366)  |  Position (83)  |  Question (649)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reassure (7)  |  Roommate (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Seem (150)  |  Serious (98)  |  Sincere (4)  |  Sincerely (3)  |  Situation (117)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Tell (344)  |  Trouble (117)  |  True (239)  |  Vigor (12)

A Vulgar Mechanick can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in an error he knows not how to find it out and correct it, and if you put him out of his road, he is at a stand; Whereas he that is able to reason nimbly and judiciously about figure, force and motion, is never at rest till he gets over every rub.
Letter (25 May 1694) to Nathaniel Hawes. In J. Edleston (ed.), Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes (1850), 284.
Science quotes on:  |  Correct (95)  |  Error (339)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Judicious (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nimble (2)  |  Practice (212)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rest (287)  |  Stand (284)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Vulgar (33)

A weird happening has occurred in the case of a lansquenet named Daniel Burghammer, of the squadron of Captain Burkhard Laymann Zu Liebenau, of the honorable Madrucci Regiment in Piadena, in Italy. When the same was on the point of going to bed one night he complained to his wife, to whom he had been married by the Church seven years ago, that he had great pains in his belly and felt something stirring therein. An hour thereafter he gave birth to a child, a girl. When his wife was made aware of this, she notified the occurrence at once. Thereupon he was examined and questioned. … He confessed on the spot that he was half man and half woman and that for more than seven years he had served as a soldier in Hungary and the Netherlands… . When he was born he was christened as a boy and given in baptism the name of Daniel… . He also stated that while in the Netherlands he only slept once with a Spaniard, and he became pregnant therefrom. This, however, he kept a secret unto himself and also from his wife, with whom he had for seven years lived in wedlock, but he had never been able to get her with child… . The aforesaid soldier is able to suckle the child with his right breast only and not at all on the left side, where he is a man. He has also the natural organs of a man for passing water. Both are well, the child is beautiful, and many towns have already wished to adopt it, which, however, has not as yet been arranged. All this has been set down and described by notaries. It is considered in Italy to be a great miracle, and is to be recorded in the chronicles. The couple, however, are to be divorced by the clergy.
Anonymous
'From Piadena in Italy, the 26th day of May 1601'. As quoted in George Tennyson Matthews (ed.) The Fugger Newsletter (1970), 247-248. A handwritten collection of news reports (1568-1604) by the powerful banking and merchant house of Fugger in Ausburg. This was footnoted in The Story of the Secret Service (1937), 698. https://books.google.com/books?id=YfssAAAAMAAJ Richard Wilmer Rowan - 1937
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Birth (154)  |  Both (496)  |  Boy (100)  |  Captain (16)  |  Child (333)  |  Church (64)  |  Confess (42)  |  Consider (428)  |  Divorce (7)  |  Down (455)  |  Girl (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happening (59)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honorable (14)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hungary (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pain (144)  |  Passing (76)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Record (161)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Right (473)  |  Secret (216)  |  Set (400)  |  Side (236)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Something (718)  |  Water (503)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wish (216)  |  Woman (160)  |  Year (963)

A work of genius is something like the pie in the nursery song, in which the four and twenty blackbirds are baked. When the pie is opened, the birds begin to sing. Hereupon three fourths of the company run away in a fright; and then after a time, feeling ashamed, they would fain excuse themselves by declaring, the pie stank so, they could not sit near it. Those who stay behind, the men of taste and epicures, say one to another, We came here to eat. What business have birds, after they have been baked, to be alive and singing? This will never do. We must put a stop to so dangerous an innovation: for who will send a pie to an oven, if the birds come to life there? We must stand up to defend the rights of all the ovens in England. Let us have dead birds..dead birds for our money. So each sticks his fork into a bird, and hacks and mangles it a while, and then holds it up and cries, Who will dare assert that there is any music in this bird’s song?
Co-author with his brother Augustus William Hare Guesses At Truth, By Two Brothers: Second Edition: With Large Additions (1848), Second Series, 86. (The volume is introduced as “more than three fourths new.” This quote is identified as by Julius; Augustus had died in 1833.)
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ashamed (3)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Baking (2)  |  Begin (275)  |  Behind (139)  |  Bird (163)  |  Blackbird (4)  |  Business (156)  |  Company (63)  |  Cry (30)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Dare (55)  |  Death (406)  |  Defend (32)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  England (43)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fork (2)  |  Fright (11)  |  Genius (301)  |  Hacking (2)  |  Holding (3)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Life (1870)  |  Money (178)  |  Music (133)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nursery (4)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Oven (5)  |  Pie (4)  |  Right (473)  |  Run (158)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Something (718)  |  Song (41)  |  Stand (284)  |  Standing (11)  |  Stink (8)  |  Stop (89)  |  Taste (93)  |  Themself (4)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

A young person who reads a science book is confronted with a number of facts, x = ma … ma - me² … You never see in the scientific books what lies behind the discovery—the struggle and the passion of the person, who made that discovery.
From 'Asking Nature', collected in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards (eds.), Passionate Minds: The Inner World of Scientists (1997), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Book (413)  |  Confront (18)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Lie (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Passion (121)  |  Person (366)  |  Read (308)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Young (253)

About 6 or 8 years ago My Ingenious friend Mr John Robinson having [contrived] conceived that a fire engine might be made without a Lever—by Inverting the Cylinder & placing it above the mouth of the pit proposed to me to make a model of it which was set about by having never Compleated & I [being] having at that time Ignorant little knoledge of the machine however I always thought the Machine Might be applied to [more] other as valuable purposes [than] as drawing Water.
Entry in notebook (1765). The bracketed words in square brackets were crossed out by Watt. in Eric Robinson and Douglas McKie (eds.), Partners in Science: Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black (1970), 434.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bracket (2)  |  Completed (30)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Cylinder (11)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Friend (180)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lever (13)  |  Little (717)  |  Machine (271)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pit (20)  |  Proposal (21)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Set (400)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)  |  Water (503)  |  Year (963)

Act as if you are going to live for ever and cast your plans way ahead. You must feel responsible without time limitations, and the consideration of whether you may or may not be around to see the results should never enter your thoughts.
In Theodore Rockwell, The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made A Difference (2002), 342.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Ahead (21)  |  Cast (69)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Death (406)  |  Enter (145)  |  Ever (4)  |  Feel (371)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Live (650)  |  Must (1525)  |  Plan (122)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.”
In Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1820), Vol. 1, 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  George Berkeley (7)  |  Church (64)  |  Existence (481)  |  Force (497)  |  Forget (125)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Samuel Johnson (51)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Observed (149)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Prove (261)  |  Stone (168)  |  Striking (48)  |  Talking (76)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Universe (900)

Alfred Nobel - pitiable half-creature, should have been stifled by humane doctor when he made his entry yelling into life. Greatest merits: Keeps his nails clean and is never a burden to anyone. Greatest fault: Lacks family, cheerful spirits, and strong stomach. Greatest and only petition: Not to be buried alive. Greatest sin: Does not worship Mammon. Important events in his life: None.
Letter (1887) from Alfred to his brother, Ludwig. In Erik Bergengre, Alfred Nobel: the Man and His Work (1960), 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Biography (254)  |  Birth (154)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Cheerfulness (3)  |  Clean (52)  |  Creature (242)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Event (222)  |  Family (101)  |  Fault (58)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Humane (19)  |  Lack (127)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mammon (2)  |  Merit (51)  |  Sin (45)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Strong (182)  |  Worship (32)

All human affairs follow nature's great analogue, the growth of vegetation. There are three periods of growth in every plant. The first, and slowest, is the invisible growth by the root; the second and much accelerated is the visible growth by the stem; but when root and stem have gathered their forces, there comes the third period, in which the plant quickly flashes into blossom and rushes into fruit.
The beginnings of moral enterprises in this world are never to be measured by any apparent growth. ... At length comes the sudden ripeness and the full success, and he who is called in at the final moment deems this success his own. He is but the reaper and not the labourer. Other men sowed and tilled and he but enters into their labours.
Life Thoughts (1858), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogue (7)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entering (3)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Final (121)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Gather (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invention (400)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moment (260)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Reaper (4)  |  Research (753)  |  Ripeness (2)  |  Root (121)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sowing (9)  |  Stem (31)  |  Success (327)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Visible (87)  |  World (1850)

All that Anatomie can doe is only to shew us the gross and sensible parts of the body, or the vapid and dead juices all which, after the most diligent search, will be noe more able to direct a physician how to cure a disease than how to make a man; for to remedy the defects of a part whose organicall constitution and that texture whereby it operates, he cannot possibly know, is alike hard, as to make a part which he knows not how is made. Now it is certaine and beyond controversy that nature performs all her operations on the body by parts so minute and insensible that I thinke noe body will ever hope or pretend, even by the assistance of glasses or any other intervention, to come to a sight of them, and to tell us what organicall texture or what kinde offerment (for whether it be done by one or both of these ways is yet a question and like to be soe always notwithstanding all the endeavours of the most accurate dissections) separate any part of the juices in any of the viscera, or tell us of what liquors the particles of these juices are, or if this could be donne (which it is never like to be) would it at all contribute to the cure of the diseases of those very parts which we so perfectly knew.
'Anatomie' (1668). Quoted in Kenneth Dewhurst (ed.), Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689): His Life and Original Writings (1966), 85-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Alike (60)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Cure (124)  |  Defect (31)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disease (340)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hope (321)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Juice (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Liquor (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perform (123)  |  Physician (284)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Search (175)  |  Separate (151)  |  Sight (135)  |  Tell (344)  |  Viscera (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

All true science must aim at objective truth, and that means that the human observer must never allow himself to get emotionally mixed up with his subject-matter. His concern is to understand the universe, not to improve it. Detachment is obligatory.
From transcript of BBC radio Reith Lecture (12 Nov 1967), 'A Runaway World', on the bbc.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Concern (239)  |  Detachment (8)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Improve (64)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mix (24)  |  Must (1525)  |  Objective (96)  |  Obligatory (3)  |  Observer (48)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subject-Matter (8)  |  True (239)  |  True Science (25)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)

Although a physical law may never admit of a perfectly abrupt change, there is no limit to the approach which it may make to abruptness.
In The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874), Vols. 1-2, 273.
Science quotes on:  |  Abrupt (6)  |  Admit (49)  |  Approach (112)  |  Change (639)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Law (15)

Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it.
Epigraph, without citation, in J.R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics (1956), 1832.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Dream (222)  |  Enough (341)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Phantasm (3)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Always deal from strength, never from weakness.
In J.S. "Torch" Lewis, 'Lear the Legend', Aviation Week & Space Technology (2 Jul 2001 ), 155 Supplement, No 1, 116
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Strength (139)  |  Weakness (50)

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  American (56)  |  Background (44)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bind (26)  |  Birth (154)  |  Blood (144)  |  Bound (120)  |  Child (333)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Country (269)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Interest (416)  |  Less (105)  |  Lift (57)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Must (1525)  |  Principle (530)  |  Soil (98)  |  Teach (299)  |  United (15)

Among innumerable footsteps of divine providence to be found in the works of nature, there is a very remarkable one to be observed in the exact balance that is maintained, between the numbers of men and women; for by this means is provided, that the species never may fail, nor perish, since every male may have its female, and of proportionable age. This equality of males and females is not the effect of chance but divine providence, working for a good end, which I thus demonstrate.
'An Argument for Divine Providence, taken from the Constant Regularity observ’d in the Births of both Sexes', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1710-12, 27, 186. This has been regarded as the origin of mathematical statistics
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Balance (82)  |  Chance (244)  |  Divine (112)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Equality (34)  |  Fail (191)  |  Female (50)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Good (906)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Observed (149)  |  Perish (56)  |  Providence (19)  |  Species (435)  |  Work (1402)

Among those whom I could never pursuade to rank themselves with idlers, and who speak with indignation of my morning sleeps and nocturnal rambles, one passes the day in catching spiders, that he may count their eyes with a microscope; another exhibits the dust of a marigold separated from the flower with a dexterity worthy of Leuwenhoweck himself. Some turn the wheel of electricity; some suspend rings to a lodestone, and find that what they did yesterday, they can do again to-day.—Some register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind is changeable.—There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colorless liquors may produce a color by union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot of they are mingled: they mingle them, and produce the effect expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again.
In Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cold (115)  |  Color (155)  |  Count (107)  |  Dexterity (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Entomologist (7)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hot (63)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Indignation (5)  |  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (17)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mingle (9)  |  More (2558)  |  Morning (98)  |  Observation (593)  |  Persuade (11)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pollen (6)  |  Profound (105)  |  Ramble (3)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Register (22)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spider (14)  |  Strange (160)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

An amoeba never is torn apart through indecision, though, for even if two parts of the amoeba are inclined to go in different directions, a choice is always made. We could interpret this as schizophrenia or just confusion, but it could also be a judicious simultaneous sampling of conditions, in order to make a wise choice of future direction.
In The Center of Life: A Natural History of the Cell (1977, 1978), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Choice (114)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Future (467)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indecision (4)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Order (638)  |  Sample (19)  |  Schizophrenia (4)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Through (846)  |  Torn (17)  |  Two (936)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don’t prove anything one way or another.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (1974), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Data (162)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Production (190)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Prove Anything (7)  |  Question (649)  |  Result (700)  |  Sole (50)  |  Test (221)  |  Way (1214)

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.
Scientific Method in Philosophy (1914), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Base (120)  |  Being (1276)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Planet (402)  |  Progress (492)  |  Single (365)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Watch (118)  |  Youth (109)

An infallible Remedy for the Tooth-ach, viz Wash the Root of an aching Tooth, in Elder Vinegar, and let it dry half an hour in the Sun; after which it will never ach more; Probatum est.
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1739).
Science quotes on:  |  Ache (7)  |  Dry (65)  |  Drying (2)  |  Elder (9)  |  Hour (192)  |  Infallibility (7)  |  Infallible (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Root (121)  |  Sin (45)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Toothache (3)  |  Vinegar (7)  |  Wash (23)  |  Washing (3)  |  Will (2350)

An observant parent’s evidence may be disproved but should never be ignored.
Anonymous
Lancet (1951), 1, 688.
Science quotes on:  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Parent (80)

An old French geometer used to say that a mathematical theory was never to be considered complete till you had made it so clear that you could explain it to the first man you met in the street.
In Nature (1873), 8, 458.
Science quotes on:  |  Clear (111)  |  Complete (209)  |  Consider (428)  |  Explain (334)  |  First (1302)  |  French (21)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meet (36)  |  Old (499)  |  Say (989)  |  Street (25)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Theory (1015)

An old medical friend gave me some excellent practical advice. He said: “You will have for some time to go much oftener down steps than up steps. Never mind! win the good opinions of washerwomen and such like, and in time you will hear of their recommendations of you to the wealthier families by whom they are employed.” I did so, and found it succeed as predicted.
[On beginning a medical practice.]
From Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist (1896), 94. Going “down steps” refers to the homes of lower-class workers of the era that were often in basements and entered by exterior steps down from street level.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Down (455)  |  Employ (115)  |  Employment (34)  |  Family (101)  |  Friend (180)  |  Good (906)  |  Hear (144)  |  Medical (31)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practice (212)  |  Predict (86)  |  Recommendation (12)  |  Step (234)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Time (1911)  |  Up (5)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Will (2350)  |  Win (53)

Ancient stars in their death throes spat out atoms like iron which this universe had never known. ... Now the iron of old nova coughings vivifies the redness of our blood.
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st century (2003), 223. Quoted in Rob Brezsny, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia (2005), 228.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Atom (381)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cough (8)  |  Death (406)  |  Iron (99)  |  Known (453)  |  Nova (7)  |  Old (499)  |  Redness (2)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vivify (2)

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Enough (341)  |  Good (906)  |  Good Enough (4)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  People (1031)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Will (2350)

And as for other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,—sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out into the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard! This contributed to the passing of the Pure Food Act of 1906.
The Jungle (1906), 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Bone (101)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fish (130)  |  Floor (21)  |  Food (213)  |  Law (913)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Passing (76)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pure (299)  |  Steam (81)  |  Tank (7)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

And genius hath electric power,
Which earth can never tame;
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower,
Its flash is still the same.
Louis Klopsch, Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1896), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Dark (145)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electric (76)  |  Flash (49)  |  Genius (301)  |  Low (86)  |  Power (771)  |  Same (166)  |  Scorch (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tame (4)

And I believe there are many Species in Nature, which were never yet taken notice of by Man, and consequently of no use to him, which yet we are not to think were created in vain; but it’s likely … to partake of the overflowing Goodness of the Creator, and enjoy their own Beings. But though in this sense it be not true, that all things were made for Man; yet thus far it is, that all the Creatures in the World may be some way or other useful to us, at least to exercise our Wits and Understandings, in considering and contemplating of them, and so afford us Subject of Admiring and Glorifying their and our Maker. Seeing them, we do believe and assert that all things were in some sense made for us, we are thereby obliged to make use of them for those purposes for which they serve us, else we frustrate this End of their Creation.
John Ray
The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691), 169-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Frustration (14)  |  Glorification (2)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Maker (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notice (81)  |  Other (2233)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Vain (86)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wit (61)  |  World (1850)

And let me adde, that he that throughly understands the nature of Ferments and Fermentations, shall probably be much better able than he that Ignores them, to give a fair account of divers Phænomena of severall diseases (as well Feavers and others) which will perhaps be never throughly understood, without an insight into the doctrine of Fermentation.
Essay 2, 'Offering some Particulars relating to the Pathologicall Part of Physick', in the Second Part of Some Considerations Touching The Usefulnesse of Naturall Philosophy (1663, 1664), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Better (493)  |  Disease (340)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Fermentation (15)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Insight (107)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Will (2350)

And therefore, sir, as you desire to live,
A day or two before your laxative,
Take just three worms, nor under nor above,
Because the gods unequal numbers love.
These digestives prepare you for your purge,
Of fumetery, centaury, and spurge;
And of ground-ivy add a leaf or two.
All which within our yard or garden grow.
Eat these, and be, my lord, of better cheer:
Your father’s son was never born to fear.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Cheer (7)  |  Desire (212)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Eat (108)  |  Father (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Garden (64)  |  God (776)  |  Ground (222)  |  Grow (247)  |  Ivy (3)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Live (650)  |  Lord (97)  |  Love (328)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Number (710)  |  Purge (11)  |  Two (936)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Worm (47)

And thus Nature will be very conformable to her self and very simple, performing all the great Motions of the heavenly Bodies by the Attraction of Gravity which intercedes those Bodies, and almost all the small ones of their Particles by some other attractive and repelling Powers which intercede the Particles. The Vis inertiae is a passive Principle by which Bodies persist in their Motion or Rest, receive Motion in proportion to the Force impressing it, and resist as much as they are resisted. By this Principle alone there never could have been any Motion in the World. Some other Principle was necessary for putting Bodies into Motion; and now they are in Motion, some other Principle is necessary for conserving the Motion.
From Opticks, (1704, 2nd ed. 1718), Book 3, Query 31, 372-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Law Of Motion (14)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Receive (117)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Angling may be said to be so like the Mathematics that it can never be fully learnt; at least not so fully but that there will still be more new experiments left for the trial of other men that succeed us.
In The Complete Angler (1653, 1915), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Angling (3)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Still (614)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Succession (80)  |  Trial (59)  |  Will (2350)

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics, that it can never be fully learnt.
In Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, 'Walton to the Reader', The Complete Angler (1653, 1824), Vol. 1, lxv.
Science quotes on:  |  Angling (3)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)

Antoine Magnan, a French zoologist, in 1934 made some very careful studies of bumblebee flight and came to the conclusion that bumblebees cannot fly at all! Fortunately, the bumblebees never heard this bit of news and so went on flying as usual.
Insects (1968, 1972), 68. Referring to Antoine Magnan Le Vol des Insectes (1934), Vol. 1 of Locomotion Chez les Animaux. Cited
Science quotes on:  |  Bumblebee (4)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Fortunately (9)  |  French (21)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Study (701)  |  Zoologist (12)

Any physician who advertises a positive cure for any disease, who issues nostrum testimonials, who sells his services to a secret remedy, or who diagnoses and treats by mail patients he has never seen, is a quack.
'The Sure-Cure School,' Collier’s Weekly (14 Jul 1906). Reprinted in The Great American Fraud (1907), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Advertising (9)  |  Cure (124)  |  Disease (340)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Positive (98)  |  Quack (18)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Secret (216)  |  Service (110)

Anybody who has any doubt about the ingenuity or the resourcefulness of a plumber never got a bill from one.
On CBS television (8 Jan 1954). As quoted in Julia Vitullo-Martin and J. Robert Moskin, The Executive's Book of Quotations (2002), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Bill (14)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Plumber (10)  |  Resourcefulness (2)

Anyone who can leave the Yucatán with indifference has never been an artist and will never be a scholar.
Quoted (without source) in Nick Rider, Yucatan & Mayan Mexico (2005), 200.
Science quotes on:  |  Artist (97)  |  Indifference (16)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Will (2350)

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Mistake (180)  |  New (1273)  |  Try (296)

Anything made out of destructible matter
Infinite time would have devoured before.
But if the atoms that make and replenish the world
Have endured through the immense span of the past
Their natures are immortal—that is clear.
Never can things revert to nothingness!
On the Nature of Things, trans. Anthony M. Esolen (1995), Book I, lines 232-7, 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Devour (29)  |  Endure (21)  |  Immense (89)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Indestructible (12)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothingness (12)  |  Past (355)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

Architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all points, have the sooner attained their object and carried authority with them.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 1, Sec. 2. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Architect (32)  |  Arm (82)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Authority (99)  |  Both (496)  |  Education (423)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Manual (7)  |  Object (438)  |  Pain (144)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rely (12)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Skill (116)  |  Substance (253)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thorough (40)

Are the humanistic and scientific approaches different? Scientists can calculate the torsion of a skyscraper at the wing-beat of a bird, or 155 motions of the Moon and 500 smaller ones in addition. They move in academic garb and sing logarithms. They say, “The sky is ours”, like priests in charge of heaven. We poor humanists cannot even think clearly, or write a sentence without a blunder, commoners of “common sense”. We never take a step without stumbling; they move solemnly, ever unerringly, never a step back, and carry bell, book, and candle.
Quoting himself in Stargazers and Gravediggers: Memoirs to Worlds in Collision (2012), 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  Addition (70)  |  Approach (112)  |  Back (395)  |  Beat (42)  |  Bell (35)  |  Bird (163)  |  Blunder (21)  |  Book (413)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Candle (32)  |  Carry (130)  |  Charge (63)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Different (595)  |  Garb (6)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Humanist (8)  |  Humanistic (3)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Moon (252)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Poor (139)  |  Priest (29)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Sing (29)  |  Sky (174)  |  Skyscraper (9)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Step (234)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unerring (4)  |  Wing (79)  |  Write (250)

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
In The Impact of Science on Society (1951), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Statement (148)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Verify (24)

As a boy I had liked both drawing and physics, and I always abhorred the role of being a spectator. In 1908, when I was 15, I designed, built and flew a toy model airplane which won the then-famous James Gordon Bennett Cup. By 16 I had discovered that design could be fun and profitable, and this lesson has never been lost on me.
On the official Raymond Loewry website.
Science quotes on:  |  Abhorrence (8)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Boy (100)  |  Career (86)  |  Design (203)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Fun (42)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Like (23)  |  Model (106)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Profit (56)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Role (86)  |  Spectator (11)  |  Toy (22)  |  Win (53)

As a naturalist you will never suffer from that awful modern disease called boredom—so go out and greet the natural world with curiosity and delight, and enjoy it.
In The Amateur Naturalist (1989), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Awful (9)  |  Boredom (11)  |  Call (781)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disease (340)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Greet (7)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

As an undergraduate who believed himself destined to be a mathematician I happened upon “Man and Superman” and as I read it at a library table I felt like Saul of Tarsus when the light broke. “If literature,” I said to myself, “can be like this then literature is the stuff for me.” And to this day I never see a differential equation written out without breathing a prayer of thanks.
In 'An Open Letter to George Bernard Shaw', Saturday Review (21 Jul 1956), 39, 12. ollected in If You Don't Mind My Saying So: Essays on Man and Nature (1964), 391.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Destined (42)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Equation (138)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Himself (461)  |  Library (53)  |  Light (635)  |  Literature (116)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Myself (211)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Read (308)  |  See (1094)  |  Superman (4)  |  Table (105)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Undergraduate (17)

As for hailing [the new term] scientist as 'good', that was mere politeness: Faraday never used the word, describing himself as a natural philosopher to the end of his career.
Nineteenth-Century Attitudes: Men of Science (1991), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Career (86)  |  Description (89)  |  End (603)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosopher (4)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Term (357)  |  Word (650)

As for methods I have sought to give them all the rigour that one requires in geometry, so as never to have recourse to the reasons drawn from the generality of algebra.
In Cours d’analyse (1821), Preface, trans. Ivor Grattan-Guinness.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Generality (45)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Method (531)  |  Reason (766)  |  Require (229)  |  Rigour (21)

As for my memory, I have a particularly good one. I never keep any record of my investigations or experiments. My memory files all these things away conveniently and reliably. I should say, though, that I didn’t cumber it up with a lot of useless matter.
From George MacAdam, 'Steinmetz, Electricity's Mastermind, Enters Politics', New York Times (2 Nov 1913), SM3.
Science quotes on:  |  Encumber (4)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Good (906)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Lot (151)  |  Matter (821)  |  Memory (144)  |  Record (161)  |  Say (989)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Useless (38)

As for the excellent little wretches who grow up in what they are taught, with never a scruple or a query, ... they signify nothing in the intellectual life of the race.
'Poet at the Breakfast-Table', The Atlantic Monthly (Oct 1872), 429.
Science quotes on:  |  Grow (247)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Query (4)  |  Race (278)  |  Scruple (2)  |  Significance (114)  |  Signify (17)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Wretch (5)

As for the formation of matter, it is never the product of sudden events, but always the outcome of gradual change.
In On Equilibrium (1929), trans. Yang Jing­Yi, 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Event (222)  |  Formation (100)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Matter (821)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Product (166)  |  Sudden (70)

As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they never stretched the pia mater of mine: methinks there be not impossibilities enough in Religion for an active faith.
In T. Chapman (ed.), Religio Medici (1643, 1831), part 1, sect. 9, 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Better (493)  |  Brain (281)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Enough (341)  |  Faith (209)  |  Head (87)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Pia Mater (2)  |  Religion (369)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Subtle (37)

As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community... this issue of paradigm choice can never be unequivocally settled by logic and experiment alone.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Assent (12)  |  Choice (114)  |  Community (111)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Logic (311)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Political (124)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Settled (34)  |  Standard (64)

As never before, the work of the engineer is basic to the kind of society to which our best efforts are committed. Whether it be city planning, improved health care in modern facilities, safer and more efficient transportation, new techniques of communication, or better ways to control pollution and dispose of wastes, the role of the engineer—his initiative, creative ability, and hard work—is at the root of social progress.
Remarks for National Engineers Week (1971). As quoted in Consulting Engineer (1971), 36, 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Basic (144)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Care (203)  |  City (87)  |  Communication (101)  |  Control (182)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Efficient (34)  |  Effort (243)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Health (210)  |  Health Care (10)  |  Improve (64)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Kind (564)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Planning (21)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Progress (492)  |  Role (86)  |  Root (121)  |  Safety (58)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Progress (3)  |  Society (350)  |  Technique (84)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

As soon as the circumstances of an experiment are well known, we stop gathering statistics. … The effect will occur always without exception, because the cause of the phenomena is accurately defined. Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined,Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined, can we compile statistics. … we must learn therefore that we compile statistics only when we cannot possibly help it; for in my opinion, statistics can never yield scientific truth.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 134-137.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Compilation (3)  |  Condition (362)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exception (74)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gather (76)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Include (93)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Truth (23)  |  Soon (187)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undefined (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yield (86)

As the brain of man is the speck of dust in the universe that thinks, so the leaves—the fern and the needled pine and the latticed frond and the seaweed ribbon—perceive the light in a fundamental and constructive sense. … Their leaves see the light, as my eyes can never do. … They impound its stellar energy, and with that force they make life out of the elements.
In Flowering Earth (1939), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Element (322)  |  Energy (373)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fern (10)  |  Force (497)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Pine (12)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speck (25)  |  Star (460)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universe (900)

As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected anyone to mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas. She presents herself unstained by cruelties and crimes. But in the Vatican—we have only to recall the Inquisition—the hands that are now raised in appeals to the Most Merciful are crimsoned. They have been steeped in blood!
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1875), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blood (144)  |  Civil (26)  |  Crime (39)  |  Death (406)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inquisition (9)  |  Mental (179)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Religion (369)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Social (261)  |  Subject (543)  |  Torment (18)  |  Torture (30)  |  Vatican (3)

Ask a follower of Bacon what [science] the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready; “It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl along without horses, to cross the ocean in ships which run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits; for it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-point to-morrow.”
From essay (Jul 1837) on 'Francis Bacon' in Edinburgh Review. In Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay and Lady Trevelyan (ed.) The Works of Lord Macaulay Complete (1871), Vol. 6, 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Against (332)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bridge Engineering (8)  |  Business (156)  |  Call (781)  |  Car (75)  |  Cave (17)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Depth (97)  |  Descend (49)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Estuary (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Father (113)  |  Fertility (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Knot (11)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lighting (5)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mining (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Muscle (47)  |  New (1273)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Office (71)  |  Pain (144)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Range (104)  |  Rest (287)  |  River (140)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soil (98)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Strength (139)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Thunderbolt (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vision (127)  |  Warrior (6)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

Astrophysicists have the formidable privilege of having the largest view of the Universe; particle detectors and large telescopes are today used to study distant stars, and throughout space and time, from the infinitely large to the infinitely small, the Universe never ceases to surprise us by revealing its structures little by little.
In Black Holes (1992), xv.
Science quotes on:  |  Astrophysicist (7)  |  Cease (81)  |  Detector (4)  |  Distant (33)  |  Formidable (8)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Little (717)  |  Particle (200)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Revealing (4)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)

At no period of [Michael Faraday’s] unmatched career was he interested in utility. He was absorbed in disentangling the riddles of the universe, at first chemical riddles, in later periods, physical riddles. As far as he cared, the question of utility was never raised. Any suspicion of utility would have restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be subjected.
'The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge', Harper's Magazine (Jun/Nov 1939), No. 179, 546. In Hispania (Feb 1944), 27, No. 1, 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Car (75)  |  Career (86)  |  Ceaseless (6)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Disentangle (4)  |  End (603)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  First (1302)  |  Interest (416)  |  Period (200)  |  Physical (518)  |  Question (649)  |  Restless (13)  |  Result (700)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Universe (900)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Utility (52)

At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit many millions of men swarmed to the East; the words of an hallucinated person … have created the force necessary to triumph over the Graeco-Roman world; an obscure monk like Luther set Europe ablaze and bathed in blood. The voice of a Galileo or a Newton will never have the least echo among the masses. The inventors of genius transform a civilization. The fanatics and the hallucinated create history.
From Les Premières Civilisations (1889), 171. English in The Psychology of Peoples (1898), Book 1, Chap. 1, 204, tweaked by Webmaster. Original French text: “A la voix d'un Pierre l'Ermite, plusieurs millions d'hommes se sont précipités sur l'Orient; les paroles d'un halluciné … ont créé la force nécessaire pour triompher du vieux monde gréco-romain; un moine obscur, comme Luther, a mis l'Europe à feu et à sang. Ce n’est pas parmi les foules que la voix d’un Galilée ou d’un Newton aura jamais le plus faible écho. Les inventeurs de génie transforment une civilisation. Les fanatiques et les hallucinés créent l’histoire.”
Science quotes on:  |  Bathe (3)  |  Bidding (2)  |  Blood (144)  |  Capable (174)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Create (245)  |  East (18)  |  Echo (12)  |  Enthusiast (9)  |  Europe (50)  |  Fanatic (7)  |  Force (497)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Genius (301)  |  Greece (9)  |  Hasten (13)  |  History (716)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Martin Luther (9)  |  March (48)  |  Million (124)  |  Monk (5)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Orient (5)  |  Person (366)  |  Roman (39)  |  Rome (19)  |  Set (400)  |  Swarm (15)  |  Transform (74)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Voice (54)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

At the outset do not be worried about this big question—Truth. It is a very simple matter if each one of you starts with the desire to get as much as possible. No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition. In this unsatisfied quest the attitude of mind, the desire, the thirst—a thirst that from the soul must arise!—the fervent longing, are the be-all and the end-all.
'The Student Life' (1905). In G. L. Keynes (ed.), Selected Writings of Sir William Osler (1951), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Contentment (11)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Fervent (6)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Fruition (2)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Know (1538)  |  Longing (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Outset (7)  |  Possible (560)  |  Quest (39)  |  Question (649)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Soul (235)  |  Start (237)  |  Thirst (11)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Whole (756)

Atoms and molecules … from their very nature can never be made the objects of sensuous contemplation.
In Ernst Mach and Thomas J. McCormack (trans.), 'Space and Geometry from the Point of View of Physical Inquiry', Space and Geometry in the Light of Physiological, Psychological and Physical Inquiry (1906), 138. Originally written as an article for The Monist (1 Oct 1903), 14, No. 1, Mach believed the realm of science should include only phenomena directly observable by the senses, and rejected theories of unseeable atomic orbitals.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Sensuous (5)

Attempt the end and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard, but search will find it out.
'Seeke and Finde', Hesperides: Or, the Works Both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick Esq. (1648). In J. Max Patrick (ed.), The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick (1963), 411.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Doubt (314)  |  End (603)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hard (246)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Research (753)  |  Search (175)  |  Stand (284)  |  Will (2350)

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.
Uncertain attribution. Often seen, but Webmaster has not yet found this wording in a primary source, and remains uncertain that this is an actual Russell quote. It is included here to provide this caution. Contact Webmaster if you have more information.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Certain (557)  |  Good (906)  |  Influence (231)  |  Philosopher (269)

Be a nuisance where it counts. … Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption, and bad politics — but never give up.
As quoted in Post Editors, 'Marjory Stoneman Douglas and The Saturday Evening Post', Saturday Evening Post (26 Feb 2018). Cited as “From a 1980 article she wrote”, in 'A Life of Advocacy and Activism', a floridastateparks.org webpage.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Bad (185)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Depressed (3)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Discourage (14)  |  Effect (414)  |  Failure (176)  |  Give Up (10)  |  Greed (17)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Inform (50)  |  Join (32)  |  Nuisance (10)  |  Politics (122)  |  Public (100)  |  Stimulate (21)

Besides accustoming the student to demand, complete proof, and to know when he has not obtained it, mathematical studies are of immense benefit to his education by habituating him to precision. It is one of the peculiar excellencies of mathematical discipline, that the mathematician is never satisfied with à peu près. He requires the exact truth. Hardly any of the non-mathematical sciences, except chemistry, has this advantage. One of the commonest modes of loose thought, and sources of error both in opinion and in practice, is to overlook the importance of quantities. Mathematicians and chemists are taught by the whole course of their studies, that the most fundamental difference of quality depends on some very slight difference in proportional quantity; and that from the qualities of the influencing elements, without careful attention to their quantities, false expectation would constantly be formed as to the very nature and essential character of the result produced.
In An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1878), 611. [The French phrase, à peu près means “approximately”. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Attention (196)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Both (496)  |  Careful (28)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complete (209)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Course (413)  |  Demand (131)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Education (423)  |  Element (322)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Exact (75)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Expectation (67)  |  False (105)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Habituate (3)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Immense (89)  |  Importance (299)  |  Influence (231)  |  Know (1538)  |  Loose (14)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mode (43)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Practice (212)  |  Precision (72)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proportional (5)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Slight (32)  |  Source Of Error (2)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Whole (756)

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.
'To my Honoured Kinsman, John Dryden', The English Poets (1901), Vol. 2, 491.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Cure (124)  |  Depend (238)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Field (378)  |  God (776)  |  Health (210)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Man (2252)  |  Money (178)  |  Physician (284)  |  Wise (143)  |  Work (1402)

Both died, ignored by most; they neither sought nor found public favour, for high roads never lead there. Laurent and Gerhardt never left such roads, were never tempted to peruse those easy successes which, for strongly marked characters, offer neither allure nor gain. Their passion was for the search for truth; and, preferring their independence to their advancement, their convictions to their interests, they placed their love for science above that of their worldly goods; indeed above that for life itself, for death was the reward for their pains. Rare example of abnegation, sublime poverty that deserves the name nobility, glorious death that France must not forget!
'Éloge de Laurent et Gerhardt', Moniteur Scientifique (1862), 4, 473-83, trans. Alan J. Rocke.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Allure (4)  |  Both (496)  |  Character (259)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Death (406)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fame (51)  |  Forget (125)  |  Gain (146)  |  Charles Gerhardt (3)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Independence (37)  |  Interest (416)  |  Auguste Laurent (5)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Marked (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Nobility (5)  |  Offer (142)  |  Pain (144)  |  Passion (121)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Rare (94)  |  Reward (72)  |  Search (175)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Success (327)  |  Truth (1109)

But at the same time, there must never be the least hesitation in giving up a position the moment it is shown to be untenable. It is not going too far to say that the greatness of a scientific investigator does not rest on the fact of his having never made a mistake, but rather on his readiness to admit that he has done so, whenever the contrary evidence is cogent enough.
Principles of General Physiology (1915), x.xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Cogent (6)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Readiness (9)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Time (1911)  |  Untenable (5)  |  Whenever (81)

But for the persistence of a student of this university in urging upon me his desire to study with me the modern algebra I should never have been led into this investigation; and the new facts and principles which I have discovered in regard to it (important facts, I believe), would, so far as I am concerned, have remained still hidden in the womb of time. In vain I represented to this inquisitive student that he would do better to take up some other subject lying less off the beaten track of study, such as the higher parts of the calculus or elliptic functions, or the theory of substitutions, or I wot not what besides. He stuck with perfect respectfulness, but with invincible pertinacity, to his point. He would have the new algebra (Heaven knows where he had heard about it, for it is almost unknown in this continent), that or nothing. I was obliged to yield, and what was the consequence? In trying to throw light upon an obscure explanation in our text-book, my brain took fire, I plunged with re-quickened zeal into a subject which I had for years abandoned, and found food for thoughts which have engaged my attention for a considerable time past, and will probably occupy all my powers of contemplation advantageously for several months to come.
In Johns Hopkins Commemoration Day Address, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 3, 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Advantageous (10)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beaten Track (4)  |  Belief (615)  |  Better (493)  |  Book (413)  |  Brain (281)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Continent (79)  |  Desire (212)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ellipse (8)  |  Engage (41)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Food (213)  |  Function (235)  |  Hear (144)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hide (70)  |  High (370)  |  Important (229)  |  In Vain (12)  |  Inquisitive (5)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Invincible (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Less (105)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Modern (402)  |  Month (91)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obliged (6)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Pertinacity (2)  |  Plunge (11)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probably (50)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Represent (157)  |  Several (33)  |  Stick (27)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Text-Book (5)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throw (45)  |  Time (1911)  |  Track (42)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  University (130)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Urge (17)  |  Vain (86)  |  Will (2350)  |  Womb (25)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)  |  Zeal (12)

But how is it that they [astrologers] have never been able to explain why, in the life of twins, in their actions, in their experiences, their professions, their accomplishments, their positions—in all the other circumstances of human life, and even in death itself, there is often found such a diversity that in those respects many strangers show more resemblance to them than they show to one another, even though the smallest possible interval separated their births and though they were conceived at the same moment, by a single act of intercourse.
De Civitate Dei (The City of God) [413-426], Book V, chapter I, trans. H. Bettenson (1972),180-181.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Birth (154)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Death (406)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profession (108)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Respect (212)  |  Show (353)  |  Single (365)  |  Twin (16)  |  Twins (2)  |  Why (491)

But no other theory can explain so much. Continental drift is without a cause or a physical theory. It has never been applied to any but the last part of geological time.
In 'Geophysics and Continental Growth', American Scientist (1959), 47, 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Cause (561)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Geology (240)  |  Last (425)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)

But since the brain, as well as the cerebellum, is composed of many parts, variously figured, it is possible, that nature, which never works in vain, has destined those parts to various uses, so that the various faculties of the mind seem to require different portions of the cerebrum and cerebellum for their production.
A Dissertation on the Functions of the Nervous System (1784), trans. and ed. Thomas Laycock (1851), 446.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Cerebellum (4)  |  Cerebrum (10)  |  Composition (86)  |  Destined (42)  |  Different (595)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Part (235)  |  Portion (86)  |  Possible (560)  |  Production (190)  |  Require (229)  |  Use (771)  |  Vain (86)  |  Various (205)  |  Work (1402)

But that which will excite the greatest astonishment by far, and which indeed especially moved me to call the attention of all astronomers and philosophers, is this: namely, that I have observed four planets, neither known nor observed by any one of the astronomers before my time, which have their orbits round a certain bright star [Jupiter], one of those previously known, like Venus or Mercury round the sun, and are sometimes in front of it, sometimes behind it, though they never depart from it beyond certain limits. All of which facts were discovered and observed a few days ago by the help of a telescope devised by me, through God’s grace first enlightening my mind.
In pamphlet, The Sidereal Messenger (1610), reprinted in The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei: And a Part of the Preface to the Preface to Kepler's Dioptrics Containing the Original Account of Galileo's Astronomical Discoveries (1880), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behind (139)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bright (81)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Discover (571)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightening (3)  |  Especially (31)  |  Excite (17)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Four (6)  |  Front (16)  |  God (776)  |  Grace (31)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Planet (402)  |  Previously (12)  |  Star (460)  |  Sun (407)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Venus (21)  |  Will (2350)

By destroying the biological character of phenomena, the use of averages in physiology and medicine usually gives only apparent accuracy to the results. From our point of view, we may distinguish between several kinds of averages: physical averages, chemical averages and physiological and pathological averages. If, for instance, we observe the number of pulsations and the degree of blood pressure by means of the oscillations of a manometer throughout one day, and if we take the average of all our figures to get the true or average blood pressure and to learn the true or average number of pulsations, we shall simply have wrong numbers. In fact, the pulse decreases in number and intensity when we are fasting and increases during digestion or under different influences of movement and rest; all the biological characteristics of the phenomenon disappear in the average. Chemical averages are also often used. If we collect a man's urine during twenty-four hours and mix all this urine to analyze the average, we get an analysis of a urine which simply does not exist; for urine, when fasting, is different from urine during digestion. A startling instance of this kind was invented by a physiologist who took urine from a railroad station urinal where people of all nations passed, and who believed he could thus present an analysis of average European urine! Aside from physical and chemical, there are physiological averages, or what we might call average descriptions of phenomena, which are even more false. Let me assume that a physician collects a great many individual observations of a disease and that he makes an average description of symptoms observed in the individual cases; he will thus have a description that will never be matched in nature. So in physiology, we must never make average descriptions of experiments, because the true relations of phenomena disappear in the average; when dealing with complex and variable experiments, we must study their various circumstances, and then present our most perfect experiment as a type, which, however, still stands for true facts. In the cases just considered, averages must therefore be rejected, because they confuse, while aiming to unify, and distort while aiming to simplify. Averages are applicable only to reducing very slightly varying numerical data about clearly defined and absolutely simple cases.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 134-135.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Average (89)  |  Biological (137)  |  Blood (144)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consider (428)  |  Data (162)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distort (22)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fasting (3)  |  Figure (162)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hour (192)  |  Increase (225)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Match (30)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pathological (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physician (284)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Present (630)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplify (14)  |  Stand (284)  |  Startling (15)  |  Station (30)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Type (171)  |  Unify (7)  |  Urine (18)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Variable (37)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

Cat-Ideas and Mouse-Ideas. We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble—no matter how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in another shape.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Cat (52)  |  Completely (137)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Nibble (2)  |  Strong (182)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Chemistry affords two general methods of determining the constituent principles of bodies, the method of analysis, and that of synthesis. When, for instance, by combining water with alkohol, we form the species of liquor called, in commercial language, brandy or spirit of wine, we certainly have a right to conclude, that brandy, or spirit of wine, is composed of alkohol combined with water. We can produce the same result by the analytical method; and in general it ought to be considered as a principle in chemical science, never to rest satisfied without both these species of proofs. We have this advantage in the analysis of atmospherical air, being able both to decompound it, and to form it a new in the most satisfactory manner.
Elements of Chemistry (1790), trans. R. Kerr, 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Air (366)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Brandy (3)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Language (308)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Species (435)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Wine (39)

Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Anonymous
Too often seen carelessly attributed to Confucius. Webmaster has searched the original writings of the disciples of Confucius who recorded his thoughts, and has seen nothing resembling this. Peasants of his era did not “choose a job”—they merely worked on raising food and providing the necessities of life for their family and community.
Science quotes on:  |  Choose (116)  |  Job (86)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Circumstantial evidence can be overwhelming. We have never seen an atom, but we nevertheless know that it must exist.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Circumstantial (2)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exist (458)  |  Know (1538)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  See (1094)

Civilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction.
From original French, “Les civilisations n’ont été créées et guidées jusqu’ici que par une petite aristocratie intellectuelle, jamais par les foules. Les foules n’ont de puissance que pour détruire,” in Psychologie des Foules (1895), Preface, 6. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Introduction, xviii. Also seen translated as, “All the civilizations we know have been created and directed by small intellectual aristocracies, never by people in the mass. The power of crowds is only to destroy.”
Science quotes on:  |  Aristocracy (7)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Create (245)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Direct (228)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Small (489)

Classical thermodynamics ... is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced ... will never be overthrown.
Quoted in Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking (ed.), A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion (2007), 353.
Science quotes on:  |  Classical (49)  |  Overthrown (8)  |  Physical (518)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)

Common sense always speaks too late. Common sense is the guy who tells you you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed a front end this week. Common sense is the Monday morning quarterback who could have won the ball game if he had been on the team. But he never is. He’s high up in the stands with a flask on his hip. Common sense is the little man in a grey suit who never makes a mistake in addition. But it’s always somebody else’s money he’s adding up.
In novel, Playback (1958), Chap. 14, 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Ball (64)  |  Brake (2)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  End (603)  |  Flask (2)  |  Front (16)  |  Game (104)  |  Grey (10)  |  High (370)  |  Hip (3)  |  Last (425)  |  Late (119)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Money (178)  |  Morning (98)  |  Repair (11)  |  Sense (785)  |  Smash (5)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stand (284)  |  Suit (12)  |  Team (17)  |  Tell (344)  |  Week (73)  |  Win (53)

Confucius once said: “our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do”. Scholars believe he was referring to roller coasters.
Anonymous
The anonymous quote includes an embedded quote misattributed to Confucius; it is not in his writings. It is first seen written (… but in rising every time we fall) by Oliver Goldmith, in The Citizen of the World: or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the East (1762). The imaginary letters are from an invented character, Lien Chi Altangi, and include Goldsmith’s probably fictional reference to Confucius for verisimilitude. See the quoteinvestigator.com website for more details.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Confucius (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Falling (6)  |  Get Up (5)  |  Glory (66)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Refer (14)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Time (1911)

Consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us ever experienced more than one consciousness, but there is also no trace of circumstantial evidence of this ever happening anywhere in the world. If I say that there cannot be more than one consciousness in the same mind, this seems a blunt tautology–we are quite unable to imagine the contrary.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Blunt (5)  |  Circumstantial (2)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experience (494)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Seem (150)  |  Singular (24)  |  Tautology (4)  |  Trace (109)  |  Unable (25)  |  World (1850)

Considerable obstacles generally present themselves to the beginner, in studying the elements of Solid Geometry, from the practice which has hitherto uniformly prevailed in this country, of never submitting to the eye of the student, the figures on whose properties he is reasoning, but of drawing perspective representations of them upon a plane. ...I hope that I shall never be obliged to have recourse to a perspective drawing of any figure whose parts are not in the same plane.
Quoted in Adrian Rice, 'What Makes a Great Mathematics Teacher?' The American Mathematical Monthly, (June-July 1999), 540.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Beginner (11)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Country (269)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Element (322)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Hope (321)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Representation (55)  |  Solid (119)  |  Student (317)  |  Studying (70)  |  Themselves (433)

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
Second verse of poem, 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud', In Poems: Including Lyrical Ballads: In two Volumes (1815), Vol. 1, 328.
Science quotes on:  |  Bay (6)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Dance (35)  |  Glance (36)  |  Head (87)  |  Line (100)  |  Margin (6)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Never-Ending (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Shine (49)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Stretched (2)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Toss (8)  |  Twinkle (6)  |  Way (1214)

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.
'The Laws of Habit', The Popular Science Monthly (Feb 1887), 451.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Bundle (7)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Evil (122)  |  Fate (76)  |  Good (906)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heed (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Realize (157)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spinning (18)  |  State (505)  |  Will (2350)  |  Young (253)

Create a vision and never let the environment, other people’s beliefs, or the limits of what has been done in the past shape your decisions. Ignore conventional wisdom.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Conventional Wisdom (3)  |  Create (245)  |  Decision (98)  |  Environment (239)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Let (64)  |  Limit (294)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Shape (77)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wisdom (235)

Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Creative (144)  |  Mirror (43)  |  People (1031)  |  Prometheus (7)  |  See (1094)

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.
In Starting From Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers’ Manual (1988), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Creativity (84)  |  Hope (321)  |  Instinct (91)  |  More (2558)  |  Trust (72)  |  Work (1402)

Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact–which creationists have mastered. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent’s position. They are good at that. I don’t think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Appear (122)  |  Argument (145)  |  Arkansas (2)  |  Art (680)  |  Attack (86)  |  Beat (42)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chip (4)  |  Creationist (16)  |  Debate (40)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Establish (63)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Master (182)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opponent (23)  |  Party (19)  |  Position (83)  |  Positive (98)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Question (649)  |  Really (77)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Second (66)  |  Speech (66)  |  Status (35)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tie (42)  |  Trial (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Victory (40)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Week (73)  |  Win (53)  |  Winning (19)

Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Man (2252)

Degree is much: the whole Atlantic might be lukewarm and never boil us a potato.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Atlantic (8)  |  Boil (24)  |  Degree (277)  |  Lukewarm (2)  |  Potato (11)  |  Whole (756)

Dermatology is the best specialty. The patient never dies and never gets well.
Anonymous
J. Dantith and A. Isaacs, Medical Quotes: A Thematic Dictionary (1989)
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Dermatologist (3)  |  Dermatology (2)  |  Patient (209)  |  Specialty (13)

Descartes, the father of modern philosophy … would never—so he assures us—have been led to construct his philosophy if he had had only one teacher, for then he would have believed what he had been told; but, finding that his professors disagreed with each other, he was forced to conclude that no existing doctrine was certain.
From 'Philosophy For Laymen', collected in Unpopular Essays (1950, 1996), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Assure (16)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Construct (129)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Disagreed (4)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Existing (10)  |  Father (113)  |  Forced (3)  |  Modern (402)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Professor (133)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Told (4)

Details are all that matters: God dwells there, and you never get to see Him if you don’t struggle to get them right.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Detail (150)  |  Dwell (19)  |  God (776)  |  Matter (821)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Struggle (111)

Dirichlet was not satisfied to study Gauss’ Disquisitiones arithmetical once or several times, but continued throughout life to keep in close touch with the wealth of deep mathematical thoughts which it contains by perusing it again and again. For this reason the book was never placed on the shelf but had an abiding place on the table at which he worked. … Dirichlet was the first one, who not only fully understood this work, but made it also accessible to others.
In Dirichlet, Werke, Bd. 2, 315. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Abide (12)  |  Accessible (27)  |  Book (413)  |  Close (77)  |  Contain (68)  |  Continue (179)  |  Deep (241)  |  Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (3)  |  Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (2)  |  First (1302)  |  Fully (20)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Keep (104)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peruse (2)  |  Place (192)  |  Reason (766)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Shelf (8)  |  Study (701)  |  Table (105)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Work (1402)

Does it seem all but incredible to you that intelligence should travel for two thousand miles, along those slender copper lines, far down in the all but fathomless Atlantic; never before penetrated … save when some foundering vessel has plunged with her hapless company to the eternal silence and darkness of the abyss? Does it seem … but a miracle … that the thoughts of living men … should burn over the cold, green bones of men and women, whose hearts, once as warm as ours, burst as the eternal gulfs closed and roared over them centuries ago?
A tribute to the Atlantic telegraph cable by Edward Everett, one of the topics included in his inauguration address at the Washington University of St. Louis (22 Apr 1857). In Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions: Volume 3 (1870), 509-511.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Atlantic Ocean (7)  |  Bone (101)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burst (41)  |  Century (319)  |  Closed (38)  |  Cold (115)  |  Company (63)  |  Copper (25)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Down (455)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fathomless (3)  |  Foundering (2)  |  Green (65)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Heart (243)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Line (100)  |  Living (492)  |  Mile (43)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Save (126)  |  Shipwreck (8)  |  Silence (62)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Travel (125)  |  Two (936)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Warm (74)

Don’t despise empiric truth. Lots of things work in practice for which the laboratory has never found proof.
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
Science quotes on:  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lot (151)  |  Practice (212)  |  Proof (304)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Work (1402)

Doubly galling was the fact that at the same time my roommate was taking a history course … filled with excitement over a class discussion. … I was busy with Ampere’s law. We never had any fascinating class discussions about this law. No one, teacher or student, ever asked me what I thought about it.
In Understanding the Universe: An Inquiry Approach to Astronomy and the Nature of Scientific Research (2013), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Class (168)  |  Course (413)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Fascination (35)  |  History (716)  |  Law (913)  |  Roommate (2)  |  Student (317)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)

Doubt is the offspring of knowledge: the savage never doubts at all.
In The Martyrdom of Man (1876), 242.
Science quotes on:  |  Doubt (314)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Savage (33)

Dreams are the reality you are afraid to live, reality is the fact that your dreams will probably never come true. You can find the word me in dream, that is because it is up to you to make them come true.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Dream (222)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Live (650)  |  Probably (50)  |  Reality (274)  |  True (239)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

During a conversation with the writer in the last weeks of his life, Sylvester remarked as curious that notwithstanding he had always considered the bent of his mind to be rather analytical than geometrical, he found in nearly every case that the solution of an analytical problem turned upon some quite simple geometrical notion, and that he was never satisfied until he could present the argument in geometrical language.
In Proceedings London Royal Society, 63, 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Argument (145)  |  Consider (428)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Curious (95)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Language (308)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Notion (120)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Remark (28)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Turn (454)  |  Week (73)  |  Writer (90)

During my second year at Edinburgh [1826-27] I attended Jameson's lectures on Geology and Zoology, but they were incredible dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology.
Charles Darwin, His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter and a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1892), 15. In Patrick Wyse Jackson, Four Centuries of Geological Travel (2007), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Determination (80)  |  Dull (58)  |  Effect (414)  |  Geology (240)  |  Incredible (43)  |   Robert Jameson (2)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Long (778)  |  Produced (187)  |  Read (308)  |  Sole (50)  |  Year (963)  |  Zoology (38)

During my stay in London I resided for a considerable time in Clapham Road in the neighbourhood of Clapham Common... One fine summer evening I was returning by the last bus 'outside' as usual, through the deserted streets of the city, which are at other times so full of life. I fell into a reverie (Träumerei), and 10, the atoms were gambolling before my eyes! Whenever, hitherto, these diminutive beings had appeared to me, they had always been in motion: but up to that time I had never been able to discern the nature of their motion. Now, however, I saw how, frequently, two smaller atoms united to form a pair: how the larger one embraced the two smaller ones: how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the smaller: whilst the whole kept whirling in a giddy dance. I saw how the larger ones formed a chain, dragging the smaller ones after them but only at the ends of the chain. I saw what our past master, Kopp, my highly honoured teacher and friend has depicted with such charm in his Molekular-Welt: but I saw it long before him. The cry of the conductor 'Clapham Road', awakened me from my dreaming: but I spent part of the night in putting on paper at least sketches of these dream forms. This was the origin of the 'Structural Theory'.
Kekule at Benzolfest in Berichte (1890), 23, 1302.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chain (51)  |  Charm (54)  |  City (87)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Cry (30)  |  Dance (35)  |  Desert (59)  |  Discern (35)  |  Dragging (6)  |  Dream (222)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Form (976)  |  Friend (180)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp (2)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Paper (192)  |  Past (355)  |  Saw (160)  |  Spent (85)  |  Still (614)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Summer (56)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Whole (756)

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)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Item (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Loss (117)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mightily (2)  |  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)

Ecologically speaking, a spilt tanker load is like sticking a safety pin into an elephant’s foot. The planet barely notices. After the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska the oil company spent billions tidying up the coastline, but it was a waste of money because the waves were cleaning up faster than Exxon could. Environmentalists can never accept the planet’s ability to self-heal.
'Seat Leon Cupra SR1, in The Times (22 Dec 2002)
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accept (198)  |  Accident (92)  |  Alaska (3)  |  Billion (104)  |  Cleaning (7)  |  Company (63)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Environmentalist (7)  |  Faster (50)  |  Money (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notice (81)  |  Oil (67)  |  Oil Spill (6)  |  Pin (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Safety (58)  |  Self (268)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Spent (85)  |  Valdez (2)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wave (112)

Education has, thus, become the chief problem of the world, its one holy cause. The nations that see this will survive, and those that fail to do so will slowly perish. There must be re-education of the will and of the heart as well as of the intellect, and the ideals of service must supplant those of selfishness and greed. ... Never so much as now is education the one and chief hope of the world.
Confessions of a Psychologist (1923). Quoted in Bruce A. Kimball, The True Professional Ideal in America: A History (1996), 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chief (99)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Fail (191)  |  Greed (17)  |  Heart (243)  |  Holy (35)  |  Hope (321)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Perish (56)  |  Problem (731)  |  See (1094)  |  Service (110)  |  Survive (87)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other—which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.
The Cynic's Word Book (1906), 86. Later published as The Devil's Dictionary.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Declare (48)  |  Dog (70)  |  Effect (414)  |  First (1302)  |  Generate (16)  |  More (2558)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Rabbit (10)  |  Same (166)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)

Einstein never accepted quantum mechanics because of this element of chance and uncertainty. He said: God does not play dice. It seems that Einstein was doubly wrong. The quantum effects of black holes suggests that not only does God play dice, He sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Black Hole (17)  |  Black Holes (4)  |  Chance (244)  |  Dice (21)  |  Effect (414)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Element (322)  |  God (776)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Play (116)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Throw (45)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Wrong (246)

Electric and magnetic forces. May they live for ever, and never be forgot, if only to remind us that the science of electromagnetics, in spite of the abstract nature of its theory, involving quantities whose nature is entirely unknown at the present, is really and truly founded on the observations of real Newtonian forces, electric and magnetic respectively.
From 'Electromagnetic Theory, CXII', The Electrician (23 Feb 1900), Vol. 44, 615.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Force (497)  |  Forgetting (13)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Present (630)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reminder (13)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Spite (55)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truly (118)  |  Unknown (195)

Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.
In Alan Harris (ed.), The World As I See It (1934), 242.
Science quotes on:  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Heart (243)  |  Life (1870)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Portion (86)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Single (365)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Together (392)

Equations are Expressions of Arithmetical Computation, and properly have no place in Geometry, except as far as Quantities truly Geometrical (that is, Lines, Surfaces, Solids, and Proportions) may be said to be some equal to others. Multiplications, Divisions, and such sort of Computations, are newly received into Geometry, and that unwarily, and contrary to the first Design of this Science. For whosoever considers the Construction of a Problem by a right Line and a Circle, found out by the first Geometricians, will easily perceive that Geometry was invented that we might expeditiously avoid, by drawing Lines, the Tediousness of Computation. Therefore these two Sciences ought not to be confounded. The Ancients did so industriously distinguish them from one another, that they never introduced Arithmetical Terms into Geometry. And the Moderns, by confounding both, have lost the Simplicity in which all the Elegance of Geometry consists. Wherefore that is Arithmetically more simple which is determined by the more simple Equation, but that is Geometrically more simple which is determined by the more simple drawing of Lines; and in Geometry, that ought to be reckoned best which is geometrically most simple.
In 'On the Linear Construction of Equations', Universal Arithmetic (1769), Vol. 2, 470.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Best (467)  |  Both (496)  |  Circle (117)  |  Computation (28)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confounding (8)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consist (223)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Design (203)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Division (67)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equation (138)  |  Expression (181)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometrician (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Industrious (12)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Invent (57)  |  Line (100)  |  Lose (165)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Place (192)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Right (473)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sort (50)  |  Surface (223)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truly (118)  |  Two (936)  |  Wherefore (2)  |  Will (2350)

Error, never can be consistent, nor can truth fail of having support from the accurate examination of every circumstance.
'Theory of the Earth', Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1788), 1, 259.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Error (339)  |  Examination (102)  |  Fail (191)  |  Observation (593)  |  Support (151)  |  Truth (1109)

Euclid always contemplates a straight line as drawn between two definite points, and is very careful to mention when it is to be produced beyond this segment. He never thinks of the line as an entity given once for all as a whole. This careful definition and limitation, so as to exclude an infinity not immediately apparent to the senses, was very characteristic of the Greeks in all their many activities. It is enshrined in the difference between Greek architecture and Gothic architecture, and between Greek religion and modern religion. The spire of a Gothic cathedral and the importance of the unbounded straight line in modern Geometry are both emblematic of the transformation of the modern world.
In Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Careful (28)  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Draw (140)  |  Enshrine (2)  |  Entity (37)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exclude (8)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Gothic (4)  |  Greek (109)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Importance (299)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Line (100)  |  Mention (84)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Modern World (5)  |  Point (584)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Religion (369)  |  Segment (6)  |  Sense (785)  |  Spire (5)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Think (1122)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Two (936)  |  Unbounded (5)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Even in populous districts, the practice of medicine is a lonely road which winds up-hill all the way and a man may easily go astray and never reach the Delectable Mountains unless he early finds those shepherd guides of whom Bunyan tells, Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere.
In Aequanimitas (1904), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Astray (13)  |  Early (196)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Guide (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Physician (284)  |  Practice (212)  |  Reach (286)  |  Tell (344)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter. This is what makes the trade of historian so attractive.
Dean Inge
In 'Prognostications', Assessments and Anticipations (1929), 149.
Science quotes on:  |  Attractive (25)  |  Divide (77)  |  Divided (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Event (222)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Historian (59)  |  Matter (821)  |  Past (355)  |  Probably (50)  |  Trade (34)

Eventually man has to get there [Mars] because we will never be satisfied with unmanned exploration.
In 'Interview: Cyril Ponnamperuma', Space World (1989), 5, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Eventually (64)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mars (47)  |  Planet (402)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Will (2350)

Every common mechanic has something to say in his craft about good and evil, useful and useless, but these practical considerations never enter into the purview of the mathematician.
Quoted in Robert Drew Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean (1910), 210.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Craft (11)  |  Enter (145)  |  Evil (122)  |  Good (906)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Practical (225)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Something To Say (4)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Uselessness (22)

Every farm woodland, in addition to yielding lumber, fuel, and posts, should provide its owner a liberal education. This crop of wisdom never fails, but it is not always harvested.
In A Sand County Almanac: and Sketches Here and There (1949, 1989), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Crop (26)  |  Education (423)  |  Fail (191)  |  Farm (28)  |  Forestry (17)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Lumber (5)  |  Post (8)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Woodland (3)  |  Yield (86)

Every man has some forte something he can do better than he can do anything else. Many men, however, never find the job they are best fitted for. And often this is because they do not think enough. Too many men drift lazily into any job, suited or unsuited for them; and when they don’t get along well they blame everybody and everything except themselves.
As quoted from an interview by B.C. Forbes in The American Magazine (Jan 1921), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Blame (31)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drift (14)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Everything (489)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Forte (3)  |  Job (86)  |  Lazy (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  Something (718)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

Every philosophy is tinged with the colouring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.
In Science and the Modern World (1925), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Color (155)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Explicitly (2)  |  Imaginative (9)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Secret (216)  |  Tinge (2)  |  Train (118)

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Assemble (14)  |  Authority (99)  |  Everything (489)  |  Happen (282)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Pronouncement (2)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Theoretically (2)  |  Write (250)

Evolution ... is really two theories, the vague theory and the precise theory. The vague theory has been abundantly proved.... The precise theory has never been proved at all. However, like relativity, it is accepted on faith.... On getting down to actual details, difficulties begin.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 101 & 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Accept (198)  |  Actual (118)  |  Begin (275)  |  Detail (150)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Down (455)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Faith (209)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Proof (304)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vagueness (15)

Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour.
From 'A Discourse Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of Prizes' (11 Dec 1769), in Seven Discourses Delivered in the Royal Academy (1778), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Excellence (40)  |  Grant (76)  |  Labor (200)  |  Man (2252)  |  Reward (72)

Exits sun; enters moon.
This moon is never alone.
Stars are seen all around.
These twinklers do not make a sound.
The tiny ones shine from their place.
Mother moon watches with a smiling face.
Its light is soothing to the eyes.
Night’s darkness hides its face.
Cool and calm is its light.
Heat and sweat are never felt.
Some days, moon is not seen.
Makes kids wonder, where had it been?
Partial eclipse shades the moon.
In summers it does not arrive soon.
Beautiful is this milky ball.
It is the love of one and all.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Calm (32)  |  Cool (15)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exit (4)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Feel (371)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hide (70)  |  Kid (18)  |  Light (635)  |  Love (328)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mother (116)  |  Night (133)  |  Partial (10)  |  Place (192)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shine (49)  |  Smile (34)  |  Soon (187)  |  Soothing (3)  |  Sound (187)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wonder (251)

Experience is never at fault; it is only your judgment that is in error in promising itself such results from experience as are not caused by our experiments. For having given a beginning, what follows from it must necessarily be a natural development of such a beginning, unless it has been subject to a contrary influence, while, if it is affected by any contrary influence, the result which ought to follow from the aforesaid beginning will be found to partake of this contrary influence in a greater or less degree in proportion as the said influence is more or less powerful than the aforesaid beginning.
'Philosophy', in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (1938), Vol. 1, 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Degree (277)  |  Development (441)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fault (58)  |  Follow (389)  |  Greater (288)  |  Influence (231)  |  Judgment (140)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Result (700)  |  Subject (543)  |  Will (2350)

Experiment is the interpreter of nature. Experiments never deceive. It is our judgment which sometimes deceives itself because it expects results which experiment refuses. We must consult experiment, varying the circumstances, until we have deduced general rules, for experiment alone can furnish reliable rules.
In Introductory College Physics by Oswald Blackwood (1939).
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Furnish (97)  |  General (521)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)

Experimenters don’t come in late—they never went home.
In Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question (1993), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Home (184)  |  Late (119)

Facts are certainly the solid and true foundation of all sectors of nature study ... Reasoning must never find itself contradicting definite facts; but reasoning must allow us to distinguish, among facts that have been reported, those that we can fully believe, those that are questionable, and those that are false. It will not allow us to lend faith to those that are directly contrary to others whose certainty is known to us; it will not allow us to accept as true those that fly in the face of unquestionable principles.
Memoires pour Servir a l'Histoire des Insectes (1736), Vol. 2, xxxiv. Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, ed. Keith R. Benson and trans. Robert Ellrich (1997), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Definite (114)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Falsity (16)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Known (453)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Questionable (3)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Report (42)  |  Sector (7)  |  Solid (119)  |  Solidity (3)  |  Study (701)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unquestionable (10)  |  Will (2350)

Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fly (153)  |  Scientist (881)

Facts were never pleasing to him. He acquired them with reluctance and got rid of them with relief. He was never on terms with them until he had stood them on their heads.
The Greenwood Hat (1937), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Head (87)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Relief (30)  |  Reluctance (6)  |  Rid (14)  |  Stand (284)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)

Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.
In Alone (1938), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Deep (241)  |  Dwelling (12)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Resource (74)  |  Strength (139)  |  Well (14)

First of all, we ought to observe, that mathematical propositions, properly so called, are always judgments a priori, and not empirical, because they carry along with them necessity, which can never be deduced from experience. If people should object to this, I am quite willing to confine my statements to pure mathematics, the very concept of which implies that it does not contain empirical, but only pure knowledge a priori.
In Critique of Pure Reason (1900), 720.
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Call (781)  |  Carry (130)  |  Concept (242)  |  Confine (26)  |  Contain (68)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  Imply (20)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  People (1031)  |  Properly (21)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Statement (148)  |  Willing (44)

First, In showing in how to avoid attempting impossibilities. Second, In securing us from important mistakes in attempting what is, in itself possible, by means either inadequate or actually opposed to the end in view. Thirdly, In enabling us to accomplish our ends in the easiest, shortest, most economical, and most effectual manner. Fourth, In inducing us to attempt, and enabling us to accomplish, object which, but for such knowledge, we should never have thought of understanding.
On the ways that a knowledge of the order of nature can be of use.
Quoted in Robert Routledge, Discoveries and Inventions of the 19th Century (1890), 665.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Avoid (123)  |  End (603)  |  First (1302)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Possible (560)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)

Florey was not an easy personality. His drive and ambition were manifest from the day he arrived ... He could be ruthless and selfish; on the other hand, he could show kindliness, a warm humanity and, at times, sentiment and a sense of humour. He displayed utter integrity and he was scathing of humbug and pretence. His attitude was always—&ldqo;You must take me as you find me” But to cope with him at times, you had to do battle, raise your voice as high as his and never let him shout you down. You had to raise your pitch to his but if you insisted on your right he was always, in the end, very fair. I must say that at times, he went out of his way to cut people down to size with some very destructive criticism. But I must also say in the years I knew him he did not once utter a word of praise about himself.
Personal communication (1970) to Florey's Australian biographer, Lennard Bickel. By letter, Drury described his experience as a peer, being a research collaborator while Florey held a Studentship at Cambridge in the 1920s. This quote appears without naming Drury, in Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle (2004), 40. Dury is cited in Lennard Bickel, Rise Up to Life: A Biography of Howard Walter Florey Who Gave Penicillin to the World (1972), 24. Also in Eric Lax
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Battle (36)  |  Coping (4)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Cut (116)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Drive (61)  |  Easy (213)  |  End (603)  |  Fairness (2)  |  Find (1014)  |  Sir Howard Walter Florey (3)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Humour (116)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Personality (66)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Praise (28)  |  Pretense (2)  |  Right (473)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  Ruthlessness (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Selfishness (9)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sense of Humour (2)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Shout (25)  |  Show (353)  |  Time (1911)  |  Voice (54)  |  Warm (74)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul and can never be taken in overdoses.
From Paper (18 Jun 1901), read before the California Academy of Sciences, published in 'The Making of New Flowers', American Gardening (13 Jul 1901), 22, No. 342, 489.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Flower (112)  |  Food (213)  |  Happy (108)  |  Heath (5)  |  Helpful (16)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sunshine (12)

For a billion years the patient earth amassed documents and inscribed them with signs and pictures which lay unnoticed and unused. Today, at last, they are waking up, because man has come to rouse them. Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them. Layers become history and, released from the enchanted sleep of eternity, life’s motley, never-ending dance rises out of the black depths of the past into the light of the present.
In 'Prologue', Conversation with the Earth (1954), 4. As translated by E.B. Garside from Gespräch mit der Erde (1947).
Science quotes on:  |  Amass (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Billion (104)  |  Dance (35)  |  Depth (97)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Geology (240)  |  Hear (144)  |  History (716)  |  Last (425)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Past (355)  |  Patient (209)  |  Picture (148)  |  Present (630)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stone (168)  |  Today (321)  |  Waking (17)  |  Year (963)

For all these years you were merely
A smear of light through our telescopes
On the clearest, coldest night; a hint
Of a glint, just a few pixels wide
On even your most perfectly-framed portraits.
But now, now we see you!
Swimming out of the dark - a great
Stone shark, your star-tanned skin pitted
And pocked, scarred after eons of drifting
Silently through the endless ocean of space.
Here on Earth our faces lit up as we saw
You clearly for the first time; eyes wide
With wonder we traced the strangely familiar
Grooves raked across your sides,
Wondering if Rosetta had doubled back to Mars
And raced past Phobos by mistake –
Then you were gone, falling back into the black,
Not to be seen by human eyes again for a thousand
Blue Moons or more. But we know you now,
We know you; you’ll never be just a speck of light again.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Back (395)  |  Black (46)  |  Blue (63)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Cold (115)  |  Dark (145)  |  Double (18)  |  Drift (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endless (60)  |  Eon (12)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Fall (243)  |  Familiar (47)  |  First (1302)  |  First Time (14)  |  Glint (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Groove (3)  |  Hint (21)  |  Human (1512)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Mars (47)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Night (133)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Past (355)  |  Pit (20)  |  Pixel (2)  |  Portrait (5)  |  Race (278)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scar (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Shark (11)  |  Side (236)  |  Silently (4)  |  Skin (48)  |  Smear (3)  |  Space (523)  |  Speck (25)  |  Star (460)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strangely (5)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

For centuries we have dreamt of flying; recently we made that come true: we have always hankered for speed; now we have speeds greater than we can stand: we wanted to speak to far parts of the Earth; we can: we wanted to explore the sea bottom; we have: and so on, and so on. And, too, we wanted the power to smash our enemies utterly; we have it. If we had truly wanted peace, we should have had that as well. But true peace has never been one of the genuine dreams—we have got little further than preaching against war in order to appease out consciences.
The Outward Urge (1959)
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Appease (6)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Dream (222)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flying (74)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Greater (288)  |  Little (717)  |  Order (638)  |  Peace (116)  |  Power (771)  |  Sea (326)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speed (66)  |  Stand (284)  |  Truly (118)  |  Want (504)  |  War (233)

For the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word, the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. But Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words.
Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany: Concerning the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science (1615), trans. Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957), 182-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Abstruse (12)  |  Alike (60)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Command (60)  |  Concern (239)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Differ (88)  |  Different (595)  |  Divine (112)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Former (138)  |  Ghost (36)  |  God (776)  |  Holy (35)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Inexorable (10)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Operation (221)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Physical (518)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Prove (261)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Speak (240)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understandable (12)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Word (650)

For there are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely, by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience; since many have the arguments relating to what can be known, but because they lack experience they neglect the arguments, and neither avoid what is harmful nor follow what is good. For if a man who has never seen fire should prove by adequate reasoning that fire burns and injures things and destroys them, his mind would not be satisfied thereby, nor would he avoid fire, until he placed his hand or some combustible substance in the fire, so that he might prove by experience that which reasoning taught. But when he has had actual experience of combustion his mind is made certain and rests in the full light of truth. Therefore reasoning does not suffice, but experience does.
Opus Majus [1266-1268], Part VI, chapter I, trans. R. B. Burke, The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon (1928), Vol. 2, 583.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Argument (145)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Burn (99)  |  Certain (557)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Draw (140)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fire (203)  |  Follow (389)  |  Good (906)  |  Grant (76)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Lack (127)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Observation (593)  |  Path (159)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Remove (50)  |  Rest (287)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a push at chance and sufferance.
Much Ado about Nothing (1598-9), V, i.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Endurance (8)  |  God (776)  |  Patience (58)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Push (66)  |  Sufferance (2)  |  Toothache (3)

For when I look at the moon I do not see a hostile, empty world. I see … a radiant body where man has taken his first steps into an endless frontier.
In David Scott and ‎Alexei Leonov, Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race (2004), 390.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  First (1302)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Hostile (8)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moon (252)  |  Radiant (15)  |  See (1094)  |  Space Exploration (15)  |  Step (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Form your life humanly, and you have done enough: but you will never reach the height of art and the depth of science without something divine.
Idea 68. In Friedrich Schlegel, translated by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms (trans. 1968), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Depth (97)  |  Divine (112)  |  Enough (341)  |  Form (976)  |  Height (33)  |  Life (1870)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reaching (2)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Something (718)  |  Will (2350)

Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply,– there are always new worlds to conquer.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Apply (170)  |  Belong (168)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Country (269)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fortunately (9)  |  Hero (45)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  New Worlds (5)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Space (523)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unknown (195)  |  World (1850)

Fractal geometry will make you see everything differently. There is a danger in reading further. You risk the loss of your childhood vision of clouds, forests, flowers, galaxies, leaves, feathers, rocks, mountains, torrents of water, carpet, bricks, and much else besides. Never again will your interpretation of these things be quite the same.
Fractals Everywhere (2000), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Brick (20)  |  Carpet (3)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Danger (127)  |  Everything (489)  |  Feather (13)  |  Flower (112)  |  Forest (161)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Reading (136)  |  Risk (68)  |  River (140)  |  Rock (176)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vision (127)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

Freudian psychoanalytical theory is a mythology that answers pretty well to Levi-Strauss's descriptions. It brings some kind of order into incoherence; it, too, hangs together, makes sense, leaves no loose ends, and is never (but never) at a loss for explanation. In a state of bewilderment it may therefore bring comfort and relief … give its subject a new and deeper understanding of his own condition and of the nature of his relationship to his fellow men. A mythical structure will be built up around him which makes sense and is believable-in, regardless of whether or not it is true.
From 'Science and Literature', The Hope of Progress: A Scientist Looks at Problems in Philosophy, Literature and Science (1973), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Believable (3)  |  Bewilderment (8)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Condition (362)  |  Deeper (4)  |  Description (89)  |  End (603)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Freudian (4)  |  Hang (46)  |  Incoherence (2)  |  Kind (564)  |  Loose End (3)  |  Loss (117)  |  Myth (58)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Relief (30)  |  Sense (785)  |  State (505)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  True (239)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

From the aspect of energy, renewed by radio-active phenomena, material corpuscles may now be treated as transient reservoirs of concentrated power. Though never found in a state of purity, but always more or less granulated (even in light) energy nowadays represents for science the most primitive form of universal stuff.
In Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Wall (trans.), The Phenomenon of Man (1959, 2008), 42. Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955).
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Energy (373)  |  Form (976)  |  Light (635)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Purity (15)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Renew (20)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reservoir (9)  |  State (505)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Transient (13)  |  Universal (198)

Galen never inspected a human uterus.
In De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem [Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body] (1543), 532. Quoted and trans. in Charles Donald O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564 (1964), 142.
Science quotes on:  |  Galen (20)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inspection (7)  |  Uterus (2)

Games are among the most interesting creations of the human mind, and the analysis of their structure is full of adventure and surprises. Unfortunately there is never a lack of mathematicians for the job of transforming delectable ingredients into a dish that tastes like a damp blanket.
In J.R. Newman (ed.), 'Commentary on Games and Puzzles', The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 4, 2414.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Blanket (10)  |  Creation (350)  |  Delectable (2)  |  Dish (3)  |  Game (104)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Job (86)  |  Lack (127)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Structure (365)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Taste (93)  |  Transform (74)  |  Unfortunately (40)

Gel’fand amazed me by talking of mathematics as though it were poetry. He once said about a long paper bristling with formulas that it contained the vague beginnings of an idea which could only hint at and which he had never managed to bring out more clearly. I had always thought of mathematics as being much more straightforward: a formula is a formula, and an algebra is an algebra, but Gel’fand found hedgehogs lurking in the rows of his spectral sequences!
In '1991 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize', Notices of the American Mathematical Society (Mar 1991), 38, No. 3, 186. This is from her acceptance of the 1991 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Amazed (4)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bring Out (4)  |  Bristle (3)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Contain (68)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formula (102)  |  Hedgehog (4)  |  Hint (21)  |  Idea (881)  |  Long (778)  |  Lurk (5)  |  Lurking (7)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Paper (192)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Row (9)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Straightforward (10)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vague (50)

Genius can never despise labor.
Louis Klopsch, Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1896), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Despise (16)  |  Genius (301)  |  Labor (200)

Genius must be born, and never can be taught.
Louis Klopsch, Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1896), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Genius (301)  |  Must (1525)  |  Teach (299)

Get into any taxi and tell the driver you are a mathematician and the response is predictable … you will hear the immortal words: “I was never any good at mathematics.” My response is: “I was never any good at being a taxi driver so I went into mathematics.”
In paper, 'A Mathematician’s Survival Guide', pdf document linked from his homepage at math.missouri.edu (undated, but 2011 or earlier, indicated by an “accessed on” date elsewhere.) Collected in Peter Casazza, Steven G. Krantz and Randi D. Ruden (eds.) I, Mathematician (2005), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Driver (5)  |  Good (906)  |  Hear (144)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Response (56)  |  Taxi (4)  |  Tell (344)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Give me the third best technology. The second best won’t be ready in time. The best will never be ready.
As quoted in a speech by an unnamed executive of General Electric, excerpted in Richard Dowis, The Lost Art of the Great Speech: How to Write It, How to Deliver It (2000), 150. By
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Ready (43)  |  Second (66)  |  Technology (281)  |  Third (17)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)

Go into a room where the shutters are always shut (in a sick-room or a bed-room there should never be shutters shut), and though the room be uninhabited—though the air has never been polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close, musty smell of corrupt air—of air unpurified by the effect of the sun's rays.
Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not (1860), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Being (1276)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Effect (414)  |  Health (210)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Light (635)  |  Observe (179)  |  Ray (115)  |  Shut (41)  |  Sick (83)  |  Smell (29)  |  Sun (407)  |  Will (2350)

Goethe said that he who cannot draw on 3,000 years of learning is living hand to mouth. It could just as well be said that individuals who do tap deeply into this rich cultural legacy are wealthy indeed. Yet the paradox is that much of this wisdom is buried in a sea of lesser books or like lost treasure beneath an ocean of online ignorance and trivia. That doesn’t mean that with a little bit of diligence you can’t tap into it. Yet many people, perhaps most, never take advantage of all this human experience. They aren’t obtaining knowledge beyond what they need to know for work or to get by. As a result, their view of our amazing world is diminished and their lives greatly circumscribed.
In An Embarrassment of Riches: Tapping Into the World's Greatest Legacy of Wealth (2013), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Arent (6)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bit (21)  |  Book (413)  |  Bury (19)  |  Circumscribe (3)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Experience (494)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hand (149)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Lesser (6)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Need (320)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Online (4)  |  Paradox (54)  |  People (1031)  |  Result (700)  |  Rich (66)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Tap (10)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Trivia (2)  |  View (496)  |  Wealthy (5)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Gold is found in our own part of the world; not to mention the gold extracted from the earth in India by the ants, and in Scythia by the Griffins. Among us it is procured in three different ways; the first of which is in the shape of dust, found in running streams. … A second mode of obtaining gold is by sinking shafts or seeking among the debris of mountains …. The third method of obtaining gold surpasses the labors of the giants even: by the aid of galleries driven to a long distance, mountains are excavated by the light of torches, the duration of which forms the set times for work, the workmen never seeing the light of day for many months together.
In Pliny and John Bostock (trans.), The Natural History of Pliny (1857), Vol. 6, 99-101.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Ant (34)  |  Debris (7)  |  Different (595)  |  Distance (171)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Excavate (4)  |  Extract (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gallery (7)  |  Giant (73)  |  Gold (101)  |  India (23)  |  Labor (200)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Mention (84)  |  Method (531)  |  Month (91)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Procure (6)  |  Run (158)  |  Running (61)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Shaft (5)  |  Stream (83)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Torch (13)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  Workman (13)  |  World (1850)

Governments and parliaments must find that astronomy is one of the sciences which cost most dear: the least instrument costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, the least observatory costs millions; each eclipse carries with it supplementary appropriations. And all that for stars which are so far away, which are complete strangers to our electoral contests, and in all probability will never take any part in them. It must be that our politicians have retained a remnant of idealism, a vague instinct for what is grand; truly, I think they have been calumniated; they should be encouraged and shown that this instinct does not deceive them, that they are not dupes of that idealism.
In Henri Poincaré and George Bruce Halsted (trans.), The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare (1907), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriation (5)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Complete (209)  |  Cost (94)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Dupe (5)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Election (7)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Government (116)  |  Grand (29)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Idealism (4)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Millions (17)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observatory (18)  |  Parliament (8)  |  Politician (40)  |  Probability (135)  |  Remnant (7)  |  Retain (57)  |  Show (353)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Supplementary (4)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Truly (118)  |  Vague (50)  |  Will (2350)

Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest.
In 'The Growth of the Steam-Engine', The Popular Science Monthly (Nov 1877), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Creation (350)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Final (121)  |  Forest (161)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Growth (200)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minor (12)  |  Progression (23)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Step (234)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truly (118)  |  Usually (176)  |  Work (1402)

Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.
From Illustrated London News (30 Sep 1933). In 'The Idolatry of the Clock', The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton (2011), Vol. 36, 349.
Science quotes on:  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Great (1610)  |  Truth (1109)

Grouches are nearly always pinheads, small men who have never made any effort to improve their mental capacity.
As quoted from an interview by B.C. Forbes in The American Magazine (Jan 1921), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Capacity (105)  |  Effort (243)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Small (489)

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Bright (81)  |  Brightest (12)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Discard (32)  |  Gem (17)  |  Guard (19)  |  Improve (64)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Moment (260)  |  Spare (9)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Had you or I been born at the Bay of Soldania, possibly our Thoughts, and Notions, had not exceeded those brutish ones of the Hotentots that inhabit there: And had the Virginia King Apochancana, been educated in England, he had, perhaps been as knowing a Divine, and as good a Mathematician as any in it. The difference between him, and a more improved English-man, lying barely in this, That the exercise of his Facilities was bounded within the Ways, Modes, and Notions of his own Country, and never directed to any other or farther Enquiries.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book I, Chapter 4, Section 12, 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Country (269)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direct (228)  |  Divine (112)  |  Englishman (5)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Facility (14)  |  Farther (51)  |  Good (906)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Lying (55)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  More (2558)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Thought (995)  |  Way (1214)

Harvard never produced anyone of great originality.
Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Great (1610)  |  Harvard (7)  |  Originality (21)  |  Produced (187)

Having probes in space was like having a cataract removed. We could see things never seen before, just as Galileo could with his telescope.
Quoted, without citation, in Eric Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe (2010), 45. Need primary source - can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Cataract (4)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Probe (12)  |  Remove (50)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thing (1914)

He [Sylvester] had one remarkable peculiarity. He seldom remembered theorems, propositions, etc., but had always to deduce them when he wished to use them. In this he was the very antithesis of Cayley, who was thoroughly conversant with everything that had been done in every branch of mathematics.
I remember once submitting to Sylvester some investigations that I had been engaged on, and he immediately denied my first statement, saying that such a proposition had never been heard of, let alone proved. To his astonishment, I showed him a paper of his own in which he had proved the proposition; in fact, I believe the object of his paper had been the very proof which was so strange to him.
As quoted by Florian Cajori, in Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 268.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Antithesis (7)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Belief (615)  |  Branch (155)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Conversant (6)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deny (71)  |  Engage (41)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Hear (144)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Let (64)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Object (438)  |  Paper (192)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Remember (189)  |  Say (989)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Show (353)  |  Statement (148)  |  Strange (160)  |  Submit (21)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Use (771)  |  Wish (216)

He never got drunk, he never got tired, and he never perspired.
[Harvard chemistry students’ axioms.]
Anonymous
As attributed in John D. Roberts, The Right Place at the Right Time (1990), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Axiom (65)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Drunk (10)  |  Harvard (7)  |  Student (317)  |  Tired (13)

He that waits upon fortune is never sure of a dinner.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dinner (15)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Wait (66)

He was not a mathematician–he never even took a maths class after high school–yet Martin Gardner, who has died aged 95, was arguably the most influential and inspirational figure in mathematics in the second half of the last century.
In 'Martin Gardner Obituary', The Guardian (27 May 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Century (319)  |  Class (168)  |  Die (94)  |  Figure (162)  |  Martin Gardner (50)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Last (425)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  School (227)

He who has never been deceived by a lie does not know the meaning of bliss.
In a letter to Elsa Lowenthal, April 30, 1912.
Science quotes on:  |  Know (1538)  |  Lie (370)  |  Meaning (244)

He who studies it [Nature] has continually the exquisite pleasure of discerning or half discerning and divining laws; regularities glimmer through an appearance of confusion, analogies between phenomena of a different order suggest themselves and set the imagination in motion; the mind is haunted with the sense of a vast unity not yet discoverable or nameable. There is food for contemplation which never runs short; you are gazing at an object which is always growing clearer, and yet always, in the very act of growing clearer, presenting new mysteries.
From 'Natural History', Macmillan's Magazine (1875), 31, 366.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Clearer (4)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Continuing (4)  |  Different (595)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Discover (571)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Food (213)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Glimmer (5)  |  Growing (99)  |  Half (63)  |  Haunting (3)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Presenting (2)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Run (158)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Short (200)  |  Study (701)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Unity (81)  |  Vast (188)

Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.
'On a Modified Form of the Second Fundamental Theorem in the Mechanical Theory of Heat', Philosophical Magazine, 1856, 12, 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Connect (126)  |  Heat (180)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)

Here's to pure mathematics—may it never be of any use to anybody.
Anonymous
A toast, variously attributed as used of old at Cambridge University, or as used by G.N. Hardy (according to Arthur C. Clarke in 'The Joy of Maths', Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays, 1934-1998 (2001), 460).
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Toast (8)  |  Use (771)

Hospitals are only an intermediate stage of civilization, never intended ... to take in the whole sick population. May we hope that the day will come ... when every poor sick person will have the opportunity of a share in a district sick-nurse at home.
In 'Nursing of the Sick' paper, collected in Hospitals, Dispensaries and Nursing: Papers and Discussions in the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Section III, Chicago, June 12th to 17th, 1893 (1894), 457.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  District (11)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Intent (9)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Person (366)  |  Poor (139)  |  Population (115)  |  Share (82)  |  Sick (83)  |  Stage (152)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

However, all scientific statements and laws have one characteristic in common: they are “true or false” (adequate or inadequate). Roughly speaking, our reaction to them is “yes” or “no.” The scientific way of thinking has a further characteristic. The concepts which it uses to build up its coherent systems are not expressing emotions. For the scientist, there is only “being,” but no wishing, no valuing, no good, no evil; no goal. As long as we remain within the realm of science proper, we can never meet with a sentence of the type: “Thou shalt not lie.” There is something like a Puritan's restraint in the scientist who seeks truth: he keeps away from everything voluntaristic or emotional.
Essays in Physics (1950), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Being (1276)  |  Build (211)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Common (447)  |  Concept (242)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evil (122)  |  False (105)  |  Goal (155)  |  Good (906)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Long (778)  |  Proper (150)  |  Puritan (3)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Realm (87)  |  Remain (355)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seek (218)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Statement (148)  |  System (545)  |  Thinking (425)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Type (171)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wish (216)

However, on many occasions, I examined normal blood and normal tissues and there was no possibility of overlooking bacteria or confusing them with granular masses of equal size. I never found organisms. Thus, I conclude that bacteria do not occur in healthy human or animal tissues.
'Investigations of the Etiology of Wound Infections' (1878), Essays of Robert Koch (1987), trans. K. Codell Carter, 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Blood (144)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Do (1905)  |  Granular (4)  |  Health (210)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Occur (151)  |  Organism (231)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Tissue (51)

Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon that people don’t know how to think about—yet. There have been other great mysteries: the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life and reproduction, the mystery of the design to be found in nature, the mysteries of time, space, and gravity. These were not just areas of scientific ignorance, but of utter bafflement and wonder. We do not yet have the final answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them. The mysteries haven't vanished, but they have been tamed. They no longer overwhelm our efforts to think about the phenomena, because now we know how to tell the misbegotten questions from the right questions, and even if we turn out to be dead wrong about some of the currently accepted answers, we know how to go about looking for better answers. With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist—and hope—that there will never be a demystification of consciousness.
Consciousness Explained (1991), 21-22.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Alone (324)  |  Answer (389)  |  Bafflement (3)  |  Better (493)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Final (121)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Question (649)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Topic (23)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wrong (246)

Human evolution is nothing else but the natural continuation, at a collective level, of the perennial and cumulative process of “psychogenetic” arrangement of matter which we call life. … The whole history of mankind has been nothing else (and henceforth it will never be anything else) but an explosive outburst of ever-growing cerebration. … Life, if fully understood, is not a freak in the universe—nor man a freak in life. On the contrary, life physically culminates in man, just as energy physically culminates in life.
(1952). As quoted in Stephen Jay Gould, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History (1984, 1994), 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Call (781)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cumulative (14)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Freak (6)  |  Growing (99)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mankind (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Perennial (9)  |  Process (439)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Humanity stands ... before a great problem of finding new raw materials and new sources of energy that shall never become exhausted. In the meantime we must not waste what we have, but must leave as much as possible for coming generations.
Chemistry in Modern Life (1925), trans. Clifford Shattuck-Leonard, vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Energy (373)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  Raw (28)  |  Stand (284)  |  Waste (109)

I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brain... & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes.
Letter to Leonard Horner, 29 August 1844. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1844-1846 (1987), Vol. 3, 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Brain (281)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Sir Charles Lyell (42)  |  Partially (8)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)

I am almost thanking God that I was never educated, for it seems to me that 999 of those who are so, expensively and laboriously, have lost all before they arrive at my age—& remain like Swift's Stulbruggs—cut and dry for life, making no use of their earlier-gained treasures:—whereas, I seem to be on the threshold of knowledge.
In Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear: the Life of a Wanderer (1969), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Biography (254)  |  Cut (116)  |  Dry (65)  |  Education (423)  |  Expense (21)  |  Gain (146)  |  God (776)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Remain (355)  |  Jonathan Swift (27)  |  Thank (48)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Use (771)

I am never content until I have constructed a mechanical model of the subject I am studying. If I succeed in making one, I understand. Otherwise, I do not. [Attributed; source unverified.]
Note: Webmaster has been unable to verify this quotation allegedly from his Baltimore Lectures. Is is widely quoted, usually without citation. A few instances indicate the quote came from a guest lecture, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (1884). The lecture notes were published in Baltimore Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light (1904). Webmaster has found no citation giving a page number, and has been unable to find the quote in that text. Anyone with more specific information, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Content (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Making (300)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Model (106)  |  Studying (70)  |  Subject (543)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

I am only a physicist with nothing material to show for my labours. I have never even seen the ionosphere, although I have worked on the subject for thirty years. That does show how lucky people can be. If there had been no ionosphere I would not have been standing here this morning.
Response to receiving an honour from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. As quoted in New Scientist (22 Nov 1956), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Labor (200)  |  Luck (44)  |  Material (366)  |  Morning (98)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Show (353)  |  Subject (543)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

I am quite aware that we have just now lightheartedly expelled in imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly, responsible for the buildings of the temple of science; and in many cases our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Angel (47)  |  Aware (36)  |  Become (821)  |  Building (158)  |  Buildings (5)  |  Case (102)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Consist (223)  |  Decide (50)  |  Depend (238)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Expel (4)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forest (161)  |  Grow (247)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Job (86)  |  Largely (14)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Officer (12)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Pretty (21)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Temple (45)  |  Temple Of Science (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Type (171)  |  Will (2350)

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain,
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
The Cloud (1820). In K. Raine (ed.), Shelley (1974), 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bare (33)  |  Build (211)  |  Cavern (9)  |  Cenotaph (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Convex (6)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Die (94)  |  Dome (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pore (7)  |  Rain (70)  |  Shore (25)  |  Sky (174)  |  Stain (10)  |  Through (846)  |  Tomb (15)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)  |  Womb (25)

I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Country (269)  |  Distance (171)  |  Face (214)  |  Family (101)  |  Friend (180)  |  Heart (243)  |  Home (184)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Lone (3)  |  Lose (165)  |  Need (320)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Tie (42)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Truly (118)  |  Whole (756)

I ask any one who has adopted the calling of an engineer, how much time he lost when he left school, because he had to devote himself to pursuits which were absolutely novel and strange, and of which he had not obtained the remotest conception from his instructors? He had to familiarize himself with ideas of the course and powers of Nature, to which his attention had never been directed during his school-life, and to learn, for the first time, that a world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words.
From After-Dinner Speech (Apr 1869) delivered before the Liverpool Philomathic Society, 'Scientific Education', collected in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1870), 63. Previously published in Macmillan’s Magazine.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Conception (160)  |  Course (413)  |  Direct (228)  |  Directed (2)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Familiarize (5)  |  First (1302)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Outside (141)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  School (227)  |  Strange (160)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Florence Nightingale quote: I attribute my success to this:— I never gave or took an excuse.
I attribute my success to this:— I never gave or took an excuse.
Letter (1861) to Miss H. Bonham Carter, transcribed in Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913, 1914), Vol. 1, 506.
Science quotes on:  |  Attribute (65)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Give (208)  |  Success (327)  |  Take (10)

I beg this committee to recognize that knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up, it increases by diffusion, and grows by dispersion. Knowledge and information cannot be quantitatively assessed, as a percentage of the G.N.P. Any willful cut in our resources of knowledge is an act of self-destruction.
While Librarian of Congress, asking a House Appropriations subcommittee to restore money cut from the library’s budget. As reported in New York Times (23 Feb 1986).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Commodity (5)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cut (116)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Dispersion (2)  |  Grow (247)  |  Increase (225)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Resource (74)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Destruction (2)  |  Willful (3)

I believe that, as men occupied with the study and treatment of disease, we cannot have too strong a conviction that the problems presented to us are physical problems, which perhaps we may never solve, but still admitting of solution only in one way, namely, by regarding them as part of an unbroken series, running up from the lowest elementary conditions of matter to the highest composition of organic structure.
From Address (7 Aug 1868), the Hunterian Oration, 'Clinical Observation in Relation to medicine in Modern Times' delivered to a meeting of the British Medical Association, Oxford. Collected in Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Composition (86)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Disease (340)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Matter (821)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Organic (161)  |  Part (235)  |  Physical (518)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Running (61)  |  Series (153)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Still (614)  |  Strong (182)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  Way (1214)

I believed that, instead of the multiplicity of rules that comprise logic, I would have enough in the following four, as long as I made a firm and steadfast resolution never to fail to observe them.
The first was never to accept anything as true if I did not know clearly that it was so; that is, carefully to avoid prejudice and jumping to conclusions, and to include nothing in my judgments apart from whatever appeared so clearly and distinctly to my mind that I had no opportunity to cast doubt upon it.
The second was to subdivide each on the problems I was about to examine: into as many parts as would be possible and necessary to resolve them better.
The third was to guide my thoughts in an orderly way by beginning, as if by steps, to knowledge of the most complex, and even by assuming an order of the most complex, and even by assuming an order among objects in! cases where there is no natural order among them.
And the final rule was: in all cases, to make such comprehensive enumerations and such general review that I was certain not to omit anything.
The long chains of inferences, all of them simple and easy, that geometers normally use to construct their most difficult demonstrations had given me an opportunity to think that all the things that can fall within the scope of human knowledge follow from each other in a similar way, and as long as one avoids accepting something as true which is not so, and as long as one always observes the order required to deduce them from each other, there cannot be anything so remote that it cannot be reached nor anything so hidden that it cannot be uncovered.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 2, 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Better (493)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Cast (69)  |  Certain (557)  |  Complex (202)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Construct (129)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enough (341)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fall (243)  |  Final (121)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Include (93)  |  Inference (45)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  Omit (12)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remote (86)  |  Required (108)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Review (27)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scope (44)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Step (234)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)

I can never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand.
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), 270-271. (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), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Long (778)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Model (106)  |  Myself (211)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)

I can still recall vividly how Freud said to me, “My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most essential thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma of it, an unshakable bulwark” … In some astonishment I asked him, “A bulwark-against what?” To which he replied, “Against the black tide of mud”—and here he hesitated for a moment, then added—“of occultism.”
Carl Jung
Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), 147-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Against (332)  |  Ask (420)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Biography (254)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Essential (210)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Promise (72)  |  See (1094)  |  Sexual (27)  |  Still (614)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tide (37)  |  Vividly (11)

I can’t recall a single problem in my life, of any sort, that I ever started on that I didn't solve, or prove that I couldn’t solve it. I never let up, until I had done everything that I could think of, no matter how absurd it might seem as a means to the end I was after.
As quoted in French Strother, 'The Modern Profession of Inventing', World's Work and Play (Jul 1905), 6, No. 32, 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  End (603)  |  Everything (489)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prove (261)  |  Recall (11)  |  Seem (150)  |  Single (365)  |  Solve (145)  |  Start (237)  |  Think (1122)

I cannot serve as an example for younger scientists to follow. What I teach cannot be learned. I have never been a “100 percent scientist.” My reading has always been shamefully nonprofessional. I do not own an attaché case, and therefore cannot carry it home at night, full of journals and papers to read. I like long vacations, and a catalogue of my activities in general would be a scandal in the ears of the apostles of cost-effectiveness. I do not play the recorder, nor do I like to attend NATO workshops on a Greek island or a Sicilian mountain top; this shows that I am not even a molecular biologist. In fact, the list of what I have not got makes up the American Dream. Readers, if any, will conclude rightly that the Gradus ad Parnassum will have to be learned at somebody else’s feet.
In Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Biography (254)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Carry (130)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Cost (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ear (69)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Greek (109)  |  Home (184)  |  Island (49)  |  Journal (31)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Long (778)  |  Molecular Biologist (3)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Paper (192)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Show (353)  |  Teach (299)  |  Top (100)  |  Will (2350)  |  Workshop (14)  |  Younger (21)

I complained to Mr. Johnson that I was much afflicted with melancholy, which was hereditary in our family. He said that he himself had been greatly distressed with it, and for that reason had been obliged to fly from study and meditation to the dissipating variety of life. He advised me to have constant occupation of mind, to take a great deal of exercise, and to live moderately; especially to shun drinking at night. “Melancholy people,” said he, are apt to fly to intemperance, which gives a momentary relief but sinks the soul much lower in misery.” He observed that laboring men who work much and live sparingly are seldom or never troubled with low spirits.
Science quotes on:  |  Constant (148)  |  Deal (192)  |  Distress (9)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Family (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hereditary (7)  |  Himself (461)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Low (86)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Misery (31)  |  Observed (149)  |  Occupation (51)  |  People (1031)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reason (766)  |  Relief (30)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Sink (38)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Variety (138)  |  Work (1402)

I conclude therefore that this star [Tycho’s supernova] is not some kind of comet or a fiery meteor, whether these be generated beneath the Moon or above the Moon, but that it is a star shining in the firmament itself—one that has never previously been seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world.
In De Stella Nova, as translated in Dagobert D. Runes, A Treasury of World Science (1962), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Tycho Brahe (24)  |  Comet (65)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Fiery (5)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Kind (564)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Moon (252)  |  Observation (593)  |  Shining (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Robert W. Wood (2)  |  World (1850)

I confess freely to you I could never look long upon a Monkey, without very mortifying reflections.
Letter to John Dennis (10 Jul 1695). In William Makepeace Thackeray, Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (1885), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Confess (42)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Reflection (93)

I confess that Fermat’s Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, for a multitude of such theorems can easily be set up, which one could neither prove nor disprove. But I have been stimulated by it to bring our again several old ideas for a great extension of the theory of numbers. Of course, this theory belongs to the things where one cannot predict to what extent one will succeed in reaching obscurely hovering distant goals. A happy star must also rule, and my situation and so manifold distracting affairs of course do not permit me to pursue such meditations as in the happy years 1796-1798 when I created the principal topics of my Disquisitiones arithmeticae. But I am convinced that if good fortune should do more than I expect, and make me successful in some advances in that theory, even the Fermat theorem will appear in it only as one of the least interesting corollaries.
In reply to Olbers' attempt in 1816 to entice him to work on Fermat's Theorem. The hope Gauss expressed for his success was never realised.
Letter to Heinrich Olbers (21 Mar 1816). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 413.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Belong (168)  |  Confess (42)  |  Course (413)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Expect (203)  |  Express (192)  |  Extension (60)  |  Extent (142)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Goal (155)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happy (108)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Little (717)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Meditation (19)  |  More (2558)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Old (499)  |  Permit (61)  |  Predict (86)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Reply (58)  |  Rule (307)  |  Set (400)  |  Situation (117)  |  Star (460)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Topic (23)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

I could never have known so well how paltry men are, and how little they care for really high aims, if I had not tested them by my scientific researches. Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.
Wed 12 Oct 1825. Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, ed. J. K. Moorhead and trans. J. Oxenford (1971), 119-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Care (203)  |  Error (339)  |  High (370)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Known (453)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Most (1728)  |  Paltry (4)  |  Research (753)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Subsistence (9)  |  Test (221)  |  Worship (32)

I do not fancy this acquiescence in second-hand hearsay knowledge; for, though we may be learned by the help of another’s knowledge, we can never be wise but by our own wisdom.
In 'Of Pedantry', collected in The Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: Translated Into English (1759), Vol. 1, 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquiescence (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Hearsay (5)  |  Help (116)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Secondhand (6)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

I do not study to understand the transit of the stars. My soul has never sought for responses from ghosts. I detest all sacrilegious rites.
Confessions [c.397], Book X, chapter 35 (56), trans. H. Chadwick (1991),212.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Response (56)  |  Soul (235)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Study (701)  |  Understand (648)

I do not think that, practically or morally, we can defend a policy of saving every distinctive local population of organisms. I can cite a good rationale for the preservation of species, for each species is a unique and separate natural object that, once lost, can never be reconstituted. But subspecies are distinctive local populations of species with broader geographic range. Subspecies are dynamic, interbreedable, and constantly changing: what then are we saving by declaring them all inviolate?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Broad (28)  |  Change (639)  |  Cite (8)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Declare (48)  |  Defend (32)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dynamic (16)  |  Geographic (10)  |  Good (906)  |  Local (25)  |  Lose (165)  |  Morally (2)  |  Natural (810)  |  Object (438)  |  Organism (231)  |  Policy (27)  |  Population (115)  |  Practically (10)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Range (104)  |  Rationale (8)  |  Reconstitute (2)  |  Save (126)  |  Separate (151)  |  Species (435)  |  Subspecies (2)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unique (72)

I feel sorry for the person who can't get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile.
Science quotes on:  |  Feel (371)  |  Feel Sorry (4)  |  Person (366)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worthwhile (18)

I feel that to be a director of a laboratory should not be, by definition, a permanent mission. People should have the courage to step down and go back to science. I believe you will never have a good director of a scientific laboratory unless that director knows he is prepared to become a scientist again. … I gave my contribution; I spent five years of my life to work hard for other people’s interest. … It’s time to go back to science again. I have some wonderful ideas, I feel I’m re-born.
From 'Asking Nature', collected in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards (eds.), Passionate Minds: The Inner World of Scientists (1997), 202.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Become (821)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Courage (82)  |  Definition (238)  |  Director (3)  |  Down (455)  |  Feel (371)  |  Good (906)  |  Hard (246)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mission (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Prepared (5)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Step (234)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)  |  Work Hard (14)  |  Year (963)

I find in Geology a never failing interest, as [it] has been remarked, it creates the same gran[d] ideas respecting this world, which Astronomy do[es] for the universe.—We have seen much fine scenery that of the Tropics in its glory & luxuriance, exceeds even the language of Humboldt to describe. A Persian writer could alone do justice to it, & if he succeeded he would in England, be called the 'grandfather of all liars'.— But I have seen nothing, which more completely astonished me, than the first sight of a Savage; It was a naked Fuegian his long hair blowing about, his face besmeared with paint. There is in their countenances, an expression, which I believe to those who have not seen it, must be inconceivably wild. Standing on a rock he uttered tones & made gesticulations than which, the cries of domestic animals are far more intelligible.
Letter to Charles Whitley, 23 July 1834. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1821-1836 (1985), Vol. I, 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Completely (137)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Create (245)  |  Describe (132)  |  Do (1905)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Expression (181)  |  Face (214)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinan von Humboldt (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Interest (416)  |  Justice (40)  |  Language (308)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Persian (4)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sight (135)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Tone (22)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wild (96)  |  World (1850)  |  Writer (90)

I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude–a feeling which increases with the years.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Country (269)  |  Detachment (8)  |  Face (214)  |  Family (101)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gang (4)  |  Heart (243)  |  Home (184)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Increase (225)  |  Lose (165)  |  Need (320)  |  Obstinate (5)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Tie (42)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

I had a Meccano set with which I “played” endlessly. Meccano which was invented by Frank Hornby around 1900, is called Erector Set in the US. New toys (mainly Lego) have led to the extinction of Meccano and this has been a major disaster as far as the education of our young engineers and scientists is concerned. Lego is a technically trivial plaything and kids love it partly because it is so simple and partly because it is seductively coloured. However it is only a toy, whereas Meccano is a real engineering kit and it teaches one skill which I consider to be the most important that anyone can acquire: This is the sensitive touch needed to thread a nut on a bolt and tighten them with a screwdriver and spanner just enough that they stay locked, but not so tightly that the thread is stripped or they cannot be unscrewed. On those occasions (usually during a party at your house) when the handbasin tap is closed so tightly that you cannot turn it back on, you know the last person to use the washroom never had a Meccano set.
Nobel laureate autobiography in Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures 1996 (1997), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Back (395)  |  Bolt (11)  |  Call (781)  |  Closed (38)  |  Color (155)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consider (428)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Education (423)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enough (341)  |  Extinction (80)  |  House (143)  |  Important (229)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kid (18)  |  Kit (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Lock (14)  |  Love (328)  |  Major (88)  |  Meccano (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Nut (7)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Party (19)  |  Person (366)  |  Play (116)  |  Plaything (3)  |  Real (159)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Screwdriver (2)  |  Seduction (3)  |  Sensitive (15)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Skill (116)  |  Spanner (2)  |  Strip (7)  |  Tap (10)  |  Teach (299)  |  Technical (53)  |  Thread (36)  |  Tight (4)  |  Touch (146)  |  Toy (22)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Young (253)

I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought. What’s the use?To hate would be to reduce myself.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 253
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Busy (32)  |  Hate (68)  |  Myself (211)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)  |  War (233)

I had at one time a very bad fever of which I almost died. In my fever I had a long consistent delirium. I dreamt that I was in Hell, and that Hell is a place full of all those happenings that are improbable but not impossible. The effects of this are curious. Some of the damned, when they first arrive below, imagine that they will beguile the tedium of eternity by games of cards. But they find this impossible, because, whenever a pack is shuffled, it comes out in perfect order, beginning with the Ace of Spades and ending with the King of Hearts. There is a special department of Hell for students of probability. In this department there are many typewriters and many monkeys. Every time that a monkey walks on a typewriter, it types by chance one of Shakespeare's sonnets. There is another place of torment for physicists. In this there are kettles and fires, but when the kettles are put on the fires, the water in them freezes. There are also stuffy rooms. But experience has taught the physicists never to open a window because, when they do, all the air rushes out and leaves the room a vacuum.
'The Metaphysician's Nightmare', Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories (1954), 38-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Arrival (15)  |  Bad (185)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Chance (244)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Damned (4)  |  Death (406)  |  Delirium (3)  |  Department (93)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Effect (414)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fever (34)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Freeze (6)  |  Game (104)  |  Happening (59)  |  Heart (243)  |  Hell (32)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Kettle (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Probability (135)  |  Room (42)  |  Rush (18)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Shuffle (7)  |  Sonnet (5)  |  Special (188)  |  Student (317)  |  Tedium (3)  |  Time (1911)  |  Torment (18)  |  Type (171)  |  Typewriter (6)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)  |  Window (59)

I had made considerable advance ... in calculations on my favourite numerical lunar theory, when I discovered that, under the heavy pressure of unusual matters (two transits of Venus and some eclipses) I had committed a grievous error in the first stage of giving numerical value to my theory. My spirit in the work was broken, and I have never heartily proceeded with it since.
[Concerning his calculations on the orbital motion of the Moon.]
Private note (29 Sep 1890). In George Biddell Airy and Wilfrid Airy (ed.), Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy (1896), 350.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Broken (56)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Discover (571)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Error (339)  |  Favourite (7)  |  First (1302)  |  Grievous (4)  |  Heartily (3)  |  Lunar (9)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moon (252)  |  Motion (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Orbital (4)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stage (152)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Value (393)  |  Venus (21)  |  Work (1402)

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that “the world” would decline to recognize them.
In Postscript to the Outsider (1967), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Belief (615)  |  Decline (28)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Recognize (136)  |  World (1850)

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, then that this universall Frame, is without a Minde. And therefore, God never wrought Miracle, to convince Atheisme, because his Ordinary Works Convince it. It is true, that a little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.
'Of Atheisme' (1625) in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1887-1901), Vol. 6, 413.
Science quotes on:  |  Atheism (11)  |  Convince (43)  |  Depth (97)  |  Fable (12)  |  God (776)  |  Legend (18)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Religion (369)  |  Work (1402)

I had this experience at the age of eight. My parents gave me a microscope. I don’t recall why, but no matter. I then found my own little world, completely wild and unconstrained, no plastic, no teacher, no books, no anything predictable. At first I did not know the names of the water-drop denizens or what they were doing. But neither did the pioneer microscopists. Like them, I graduated to looking at butterfly scales and other miscellaneous objects. I never thought of what I was doing in such a way, but it was pure science. As true as could be of any child so engaged, I was kin to Leeuwenhoek, who said that his work “was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more that most other men.”
In The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (2010), 143-144.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Book (413)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Child (333)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completely (137)  |  Craving (5)  |  Doing (277)  |  Drop (77)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Graduation (6)  |  Kin (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (17)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Microscopist (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Praise (28)  |  Predictability (7)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Reside (25)  |  Scale (122)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unconstrained (2)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

I hadn’t been aware that there were doors closed to me until I started knocking on them. I went to an all-girls school. There were 75 chemistry majors in that class, but most were going to teach it … When I got out and they didn't want women in the laboratory, it was a shock … It was the Depression and nobody was getting jobs. But I had taken that to mean nobody was getting jobs … [when I heard] “You're qualified. But we’ve never had a woman in the laboratory before, and we think you’d be a distracting influence.”
As quoted in Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles and Momentous Discoveries (1993).
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Class (168)  |  Closed (38)  |  Depression (26)  |  Door (94)  |  Girl (38)  |  Influence (231)  |  Job (86)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Major (88)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Qualified (12)  |  School (227)  |  Shock (38)  |  Start (237)  |  Teach (299)  |  Think (1122)  |  Want (504)  |  Woman (160)  |  Women Scientists (18)

I hardly know of a great physical truth whose universal reception has not been preceded by an epoch in which the most estimable persons have maintained that the phenomena investigated were directly dependent on the Divine Will, and that the attempt to investigate them was not only futile but blasphemous. And there is a wonderful tenacity of life about this sort of opposition to physical science. Crushed and maimed in every battle, it yet seems never to be slain; and after a hundred defeats it is at this day as rampant, though happily not so mischievous, as in the time of Galileo.
In Address (10 Feb 1860) to weekly evening meeting, 'On Species and Races, and their Origin', Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution: Vol. III: 1858-1862 (1862), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Battle (36)  |  Crush (19)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Divine (112)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Futile (13)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maim (3)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Rampant (2)  |  Reception (16)  |  Tenacity (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)

I have been battering away at Saturn, returning to the charge every now and then. I have effected several breaches in the solid ring, and now I am splash into the fluid one, amid a clash of symbols truly astounding. When I reappear it will be in the dusky ring, which is something like the state of the air supposing the siege of Sebastopol conducted from a forest of guns 100 miles one way, and 30,000 miles the other, and the shot never to stop, but go spinning away round a circle, radius 170,000 miles.
Letter to Lewis Campbell (28 Aug 1857). In P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1990), Vol. 1, 1846-1862, 538.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Astounding (9)  |  Charge (63)  |  Circle (117)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Dusky (4)  |  Effect (414)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Forest (161)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ring (18)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Solid (119)  |  Something (718)  |  Spinning (18)  |  State (505)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Truly (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities, and even from the great engineer, the late James Watt, who said ... that I deserved hanging for bringing into use the high-pressure engine. This has so far been my reward from the public; but should this be all, I shall be satisfied by the great secret pleasure and laudable pride that I feel in my own breast from having been the instrument of bringing forward new principles and new arrangements of boundless value to my country, and however much I may be straitened in pecuniary circumstances, the great honour of being a useful subject can never be taken from me, which far exceeds riches.
From letter to Davies Gilbert, written a few months before Trevithick's last illness. Quoted in Francis Trevithick, Life of Richard Trevithick: With an Account of his Inventions (1872), Vol. 2, 395-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biography (254)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Call (781)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Country (269)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Feel (371)  |  Folly (44)  |  Forward (104)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hanging (4)  |  High (370)  |  Honour (58)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invention (400)  |  Late (119)  |  Madness (33)  |  New (1273)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Pride (84)  |  Principle (530)  |  Public (100)  |  Reward (72)  |  Riches (14)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Secret (216)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Subject (543)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)  |  James Watt (11)  |  World (1850)

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything.
A Century of Family Letters, 1792-1896
Science quotes on:  |  Clever (41)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Originate (39)  |  Problem (731)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Undiscovered (15)

I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this—never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be—usually is, in fact—a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance.
Lecture at Harvard University. Quoted in Joseph Sambrook, David W. Russell, Molecular Cloning (2001), Vol. 1, 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advice (57)  |  Alarm (19)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Chance (244)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fate (76)  |  Happening (59)  |  Influence (231)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lead (391)  |  Live (650)  |  Luck (44)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Research (753)  |  Trying (144)  |  Usually (176)  |  Young (253)

I have long recognized the theory and aesthetic of such comprehensive display: show everything and incite wonder by sheer variety. But I had never realized how power fully the decor of a cabinet museum can promote this goal until I saw the Dublin [Natural History Museum] fixtures redone right ... The exuberance is all of one piece–organic and architectural. I write this essay to offer my warmest congratulations to the Dublin Museum for choosing preservation–a decision not only scientifically right, but also ethically sound and decidedly courageous. The avant-garde is not an exclusive locus of courage; a principled stand within a reconstituted rear unit may call down just as much ridicule and demand equal fortitude. Crowds do not always rush off in admirable or defendable directions.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Cabinet (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Choose (116)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Congratulation (5)  |  Congratulations (3)  |  Courage (82)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Decidedly (2)  |  Decision (98)  |  Demand (131)  |  Direction (185)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Dublin (3)  |  Equal (88)  |  Essay (27)  |  Ethically (4)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Exuberance (3)  |  Fixture (2)  |  Fortitude (2)  |  Fully (20)  |  Goal (155)  |  History (716)  |  Incite (3)  |  Locus (5)  |  Long (778)  |  Museum (40)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organic (161)  |  Piece (39)  |  Power (771)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Principle (530)  |  Promote (32)  |  Realize (157)  |  Rear (7)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reconstitute (2)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Right (473)  |  Rush (18)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scientifically (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Sheer (9)  |  Show (353)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unit (36)  |  Variety (138)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Write (250)

I have never been disappointed upon asking microorganisms for whatever I wanted.
Quoted in Armin Fietchter, History of Modern Biology (2000), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Asking (74)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Want (504)  |  Whatever (234)

I have never done anything 'useful'. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world... Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating. And that I have created something is undeniable: the question is about its value.
A Mathematician's Apology (1940), 90-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Complete (209)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Good (906)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mine (78)  |  Outside (141)  |  Practical (225)  |  Question (649)  |  Something (718)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Value (393)  |  Verdict (8)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

I have never done anything “useful.” No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world... Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating. And that I have created something is undeniable: the question is about its value. [The things I have added to knowledge do not differ from] the creations of the other artists, great or small, who have left some kind of memorial beind them.
Concluding remarks in A Mathmatician's Apology (1940, 2012), 150-151.
Science quotes on:  |  Artist (97)  |  Biography (254)  |  Chance (244)  |  Complete (209)  |  Creation (350)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mine (78)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Practical (225)  |  Question (649)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)  |  Verdict (8)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

I have never had any student or pupil under me to aid me with assistance; but have always prepared and made my experiments with my own hands, working & thinking at the same time. I do not think I could work in company, or think aloud, or explain my thoughts at the time. Sometimes I and my assistant have been in the Laboratory for hours & days together, he preparing some lecture apparatus or cleaning up, & scarcely a word has passed between us; — all this being a consequence of the solitary & isolated system of investigation; in contradistinction to that pursued by a Professor with his aids & pupils as in your Universities.
Letter to C. Ransteed, 16 Dec 1857. In L. Pearce Williams (ed.), The Selected Correspondence of Michael Faraday (1971), Vol. 2, 888.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cleaning (7)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Company (63)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Hour (192)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Pass (241)  |  Preparing (21)  |  Professor (133)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Research (753)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Student (317)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

I have never had reason, up to now, to give up the concept which I have always stressed, that nerve cells, instead of working individually, act together, so that we must think that several groups of elements exercise a cumulative effect on the peripheral organs through whole bundles of fibres. It is understood that this concept implies another regarding the opposite action of sensory functions. However opposed it may seem to the popular tendency to individualize the elements, I cannot abandon the idea of a unitary action of the nervous system, without bothering if, by that, I approach old conceptions.
'The Neuron Doctrine-Theory and Facts', Nobel Lecture 11 Dec 1906. In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1901-1921 (1967), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Approach (112)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conception (160)  |  Cumulative (14)  |  Effect (414)  |  Element (322)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Function (235)  |  Idea (881)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Old (499)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Organ (118)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Stress (22)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Understood (155)  |  Whole (756)

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
In Alex Ayres, The Wit & Wisdom of Mark Twain (1987), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Education (423)  |  Interfere (17)

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves–this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts–possessions, outward success, luxury–have always seemed to me contemptible.
In 'What I Believe,' Forum and Century (1930).
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Basis (180)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Call (781)  |  Cheerfully (2)  |  Contemptible (8)  |  Courage (82)  |  Critical (73)  |  Ease (40)  |  Effort (243)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Eternally (4)  |  Face (214)  |  Field (378)  |  Give (208)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Kindness (14)  |  Kinship (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Objective (96)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Outward (7)  |  Possession (68)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sense (785)  |  Success (327)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trite (5)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unattainable (6)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

I have never really had dreams to fulfil…. You just want to go on looking at these ecosystems and trying to understand them and they are all fascinating. To achieve a dream suggests snatching a prize from the top of a tree and running off with it, and that’s the end of it. It isn’t like that. … What you are trying to achieve is understanding and you don’t do that just by chasing dreams.
From interview with Michael Bond, 'It’s a Wonderful Life', New Scientist (14 Dec 2002), 176, No. 2373, 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Chase (14)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  End (603)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Looking (191)  |  Prize (13)  |  Running (61)  |  Top (100)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Want (504)

I have never seen a food writer mention this, but all shrimp imported into the United States must first be washed in chlorine bleach to kill bugs. What this does for the taste, I do not know, but I think we should be told.
In The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat (2008), 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Bleach (3)  |  Bug (10)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Food (213)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mention (84)  |  Must (1525)  |  Shrimp (5)  |  State (505)  |  Taste (93)  |  Think (1122)  |  Told (4)  |  United (15)  |  Wash (23)  |  Washed (2)  |  Writer (90)

I have never seen the Philosopher's Stone that turns lead into Gold, but I have known the pursuit of it turn a Man's Gold into Lead.
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1738).
Science quotes on:  |  Gold (101)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosopher�s Stone (8)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Stone (168)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turning (5)

I have never thought that you could obtain the extremely clumpy, heterogeneous universe we have today, strongly affected by plasma processes, from the smooth, homogeneous one of the Big Bang, dominated by gravitation.
Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988),196.
Science quotes on:  |  Affected (3)  |  Bang (29)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Heterogeneous (4)  |  Homogeneous (17)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Plasma (8)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Universe (900)

I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humour.
Dean Inge
In 'Confessio Fidei', collected in Outspoken Essays: Second Series (1922), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Creator (97)  |  Derogatory (3)  |  Humour (116)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sense Of Humor (3)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Understood (155)  |  Why (491)

I have never yet met a healthy person who worried very much about his health, or a really good person who worried much about his own soul.
In Keeping Cool: And Other Essays (1940), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Good (906)  |  Health (210)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Meet (36)  |  Person (366)  |  Soul (235)  |  Worry (34)

I have no patience with attempts to identify science with measurement, which is but one of its tools, or with any definition of the scientist which would exclude a Darwin, a Pasteur or a Kekulé. The scientist is a practical man and his are practical aims. He does not seek the ultimate but the proximate. He does not speak of the last analysis but rather of the next approximation. His are not those beautiful structures so delicately designed that a single flaw may cause the collapse of the whole. The scientist builds slowly and with a gross but solid kind of masonry. If dissatisfied with any of his work, even if it be near the very foundations, he can replace that part without damage to the remainder. On the whole, he is satisfied with his work, for while science may never be wholly right it certainly is never wholly wrong; and it seems to be improving from decade to decade.
The Anatomy of Science (1926), 6-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Build (211)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Collapse (19)  |  Damage (38)  |  Decade (66)  |  Definition (238)  |  Design (203)  |  Dissatisfaction (13)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Improvement (117)  |  August Kekulé (14)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Masonry (4)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Next (238)  |  Louis Pasteur (85)  |  Patience (58)  |  Practical (225)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proximate (4)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Right (473)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seek (218)  |  Single (365)  |  Solid (119)  |  Speak (240)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tool (129)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

I have often thought that an interesting essay might be written on the influence of race on the selection of mathematical methods. methods. The Semitic races had a special genius for arithmetic and algebra, but as far as I know have never produced a single geometrician of any eminence. The Greeks on the other hand adopted a geometrical procedure wherever it was possible, and they even treated arithmetic as a branch of geometry by means of the device of representing numbers by lines.
In A History of the Study of Mathematics at Cambridge (1889), 123
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Branch (155)  |  Device (71)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Essay (27)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometrician (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Greek (109)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Know (1538)  |  Line (100)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Produced (187)  |  Race (278)  |  Represent (157)  |  Selection (130)  |  Single (365)  |  Special (188)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Write (250)

I have patiently born with abundance of Clamour and Ralary [raillery], for beginning a new Practice here (for the Good of the Publick) which comes well Recommended, from Gentlemen of Figure & Learning, and which well agrees to Reason, when try’d & duly considered, viz. Artificially giving the Small Pocks, by Inoculation, to One of my Children, and Two of my Slaves, in order to prevent the hazard of Life… . and they never took one grain or drop of Medicine since, & are perfectly well.
By “clamour” he is referring to the public commotion in Boston reacting to his introduction of smallpox inoculation. Public statement in the Gazette (Jul 10-17), No. 85, 1721. As quoted and cited in Reginald H. Fitz, 'Zabdiel Boylston, Inoculator, and the Epidemic of Smallpox in Boston in 1721', Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1911), 22, 319.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Children (201)  |  Clamor (7)  |  Consider (428)  |  Drop (77)  |  Figure (162)  |  Good (906)  |  Grain (50)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Inoculation (9)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Medicine (392)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Practice (212)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Slave (40)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)

I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young one and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript [not known to science]. They are much smaller and more slender than the mus domesticus medius of Ray; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour ... They never enter into houses; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves; abound in harvest, and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above the ground, and sometimes in thistles.
[Part of his observations on the harvest mouse, which he was the first to describe as a new species.]
Letter XII (4 Nov 1767) in The Natural History of Selborne (1789, 1899), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Barn (6)  |  Both (496)  |  Brandy (3)  |  Build (211)  |  Corn (20)  |  Describe (132)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enter (145)  |  Female (50)  |  First (1302)  |  Former (138)  |  Ground (222)  |  Harvest (28)  |  House (143)  |  Known (453)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Nest (26)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Ray (115)  |  John Ray (8)  |  Sheaf (2)  |  Species (435)  |  Squirrel (11)  |  Straw (7)  |  Thistle (5)  |  Young (253)

I have tried to show why I believe that the biologist is the most romantic figure on earth at the present day. At first sight he seems to be just a poor little scrubby underpaid man, groping blindly amid the mazes of the ultra-microscopic, engaging in bitter and lifelong quarrels over the nephridia of flatworms, waking perhaps one morning to find that someone whose name he has never heard has demolished by a few crucial experiments the work which he had hoped would render him immortal.
Daedalus or Science and the Future (1924), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Biologist (70)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Demolish (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Lifelong (10)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Morning (98)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Poor (139)  |  Present (630)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Show (353)  |  Sight (135)  |  Waking (17)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)

I have very often reflected on what it is that really distinguishes the great genius from the common crowd. Here are a few observations I have made. The common individual always conforms to the prevailing opinion and the prevailing fashion; he regards the State in which everything now exists as the only possible one and passively accepts it ail. It does not occur to him that everything, from the shape of the furniture up to the subtlest hypothesis, is decided by the great council of mankind of which he is a member. He wears thin-soled shoes even though the sharp stones of the Street hurt his feet, he allows fashion to dictate to him that the buckles of his shoes must extend as far as the toes even though that means the shoe is often hard to get on. He does not reflect that the form of the shoe depends as much upon him as it does upon the fool who first wore thin shoes on a cracked pavement. To the great genius it always occurs to ask: Could this too not be false! He never gives his vote without first reflecting.
Aphorism 24 in Notebook C (1772-1773), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Ask (420)  |  Common (447)  |  Council (9)  |  Depend (238)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fashion (34)  |  First (1302)  |  Fool (121)  |  Form (976)  |  Furniture (8)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Individual (420)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occur (151)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Possible (560)  |  Regard (312)  |  Shoe (12)  |  State (505)  |  Stone (168)  |  Vote (16)

I hear one day the word “mountain,” and I ask someone “what is a mountain? I have never seen one.”
I join others in discussions of mountains.
One day I see in a book a picture of a mountain.
And I decide I must climb one.
I travel to a place where there is a mountain.
At the base of the mountain I see there are lots of paths to climb.
I start on a path that leads to the top of the mountain.
I see that the higher I climb, the more the paths join together.
After much climbing the many paths join into one.
I climb till I am almost exhausted but I force myself and continue to climb.
Finally I reach the top and far above me there are stars.
I look far down and the village twinkles far below.
It would be easy to go back down there but it is so beautiful up here.
I am just below the stars.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Back (395)  |  Base (120)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Below (26)  |  Book (413)  |  Climb (39)  |  Continue (179)  |  Decide (50)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Down (455)  |  Easy (213)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Far (158)  |  Finally (26)  |  Force (497)  |  Hear (144)  |  High (370)  |  Join (32)  |  Lead (391)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Picture (148)  |  Place (192)  |  Reach (286)  |  See (1094)  |  Someone (24)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Start (237)  |  Together (392)  |  Top (100)  |  Travel (125)  |  Twinkle (6)  |  Village (13)  |  Word (650)

I hear you say “Why?” Always “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
Back to Methuselah: a Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), 6. Often seen attributed to John F. Kennedy or Bobby Kennedy who restated this quote as “Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Dream (222)  |  Hear (144)  |  Look (584)  |  Say (989)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)

I hear you say “Why?” Always “Why?” You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
The Serpent. Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 121
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  Hear (144)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)

I learnt very quickly that the only reason that would be accepted for not attending a committee meeting was that one already had a previous commitment to attend a meeting of another organization on the same day. I therefore invented a society, the Orion Society, a highly secret and very exclusive society that spawned a multitude of committees, sub-committees, working parties, evaluation groups and so on that, regrettably, had a prior claim on my attention. Soon people wanted to know more about this club and some even decided that they would like to join it. However, it was always made clear to them that applications were never entertained and that if they were deemed to qualify for membership they would be discreetly approached at the appropriate time.
Loose Ends from Current Biology (1997), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Approach (112)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Attend (67)  |  Attention (196)  |  Claim (154)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Committee (16)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Evaluation (10)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Know (1538)  |  Meeting (22)  |  More (2558)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Organization (120)  |  People (1031)  |  Reason (766)  |  Secret (216)  |  Society (350)  |  Soon (187)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)

I look upon the whole system of giving pensions to literary and scientific people as a piece of gross humbug. It is not done for any good purpose; it ought never to have been done. It is gross humbug from beginning to end.
Words attributed to Melbourne in Fraser's Magazine (1835), 12, 707.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  End (603)  |  Good (906)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Look (584)  |  Pension (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  System (545)  |  Whole (756)

I make many of my friends by lecturing. I keep the lectures informal, if I can, with lots of discussion, and I never give the same one twice—I’d die of boredom if I did.
As quoted in interview with Frances Glennon, 'Student and Teacher of Human Ways', Life (14 Sep 1959), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Boredom (11)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Friend (180)  |  Informal (5)  |  Keep (104)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lot (151)

I might paraphrase Churchill and say: never have I received so much for so little.
[Exemplifying humility, upon accepting the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.]
In Banquet Speech, Stokholm (10 Dec 1970). Nobelprize.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Accepting (22)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Winston Churchill (48)  |  Humility (31)  |  Little (717)  |  Much (3)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Paraphrase (4)  |  Receive (117)  |  Say (989)

I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. … After we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project without solving the problem, … we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn’t be done that way, and that we would have to try some other way. We sometimes learn a lot from our failures if we have put into the effort the best thought and work we are capable of.
As quoted from an interview by B.C. Forbes in The American Magazine (Jan 1921), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Best (467)  |  Capable (174)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Discouragement (10)  |  Effort (243)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Failure (176)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lot (151)  |  Myself (211)  |  Other (2233)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Problem (731)  |  Project (77)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

I never come across one of Laplace’s “Thus it plainly appears” without feeling sure that I have hours of hard work before me to fill up the chasm and find out and show how it plainly appears.
In Florian Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1896), 104.
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Appear (122)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fill (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Hour (192)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Plainly (5)  |  Show (353)  |  Work (1402)

I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven— [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I’ve got it now. It’s eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can’t manage a statistic.
Speech at the New York Association for Promoting the Interests of the Blind (29 Mar 1906). In Mark Twain and William Dean Howells (ed.), Mark Twain’s Speeches? (1910), 323.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Answer (389)  |  Deep (241)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Figure (162)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minute (129)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Number (710)  |  Reach (286)  |  Right (473)  |  Rugged (7)  |  Soon (187)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Study (701)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Whisper (11)

I never could make out what those damned dots meant.
Referring to decimal points. “But this was surely only to tease.” Quoted in W.S. Churchill, Lord Randolph Churchill (1906), Vol. 2, 184.
Science quotes on:  |  Damn (12)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Dot (18)  |  Mean (810)  |  Point (584)  |  Refer (14)

I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident and none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They came about by hard work.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Doing (277)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Invention (400)  |  Totally (6)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

I never found it easy. People say I was lucky twice but I resent that. We stuck with [cimetidine] for four years with no progress until we eventually succeeded. It was not luck, it was bloody hard work.
[Rejecting that drug discovery was easier in the past.]
Quoted in Andrew Jack, "An Acute Talent for Innovation", Financial Times (1 Feb 2009).
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drug (61)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Luck (44)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Progress (492)  |  Say (989)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

I never got tired of watching the radar echo from an aircraft as it first appeared as a tiny blip in the noise on the cathode-ray tube, and then grew slowly into a big deflection as the aircraft came nearer. This strange new power to “see” things at great distances, through clouds or darkness, was a magical extension of our senses. It gave me the same thrill that I felt in the early days of radio when I first heard a voice coming out of a horn...
In Boffin: A Personal Story of the Early Days of Radar, Radio Astronomy and Quantum Optics (1991), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Aircraft (9)  |  Blip (2)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Coming (114)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Deflection (2)  |  Distance (171)  |  Early (196)  |  Early Days (3)  |  Echo (12)  |  Extension (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Horn (18)  |  Magic (92)  |  Nearer (45)  |  New (1273)  |  Noise (40)  |  Power (771)  |  Radar (9)  |  Radio (60)  |  Ray (115)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Voice (54)  |  Watching (11)

I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.
Spoken by fictitious character Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four (1890), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Destructive (10)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Guess (67)  |  Habit (174)  |  Logic (311)  |  Shocking (3)

I never know whether to be more surprised at Darwin himself for making so much of natural selection, or at his opponents for making so little of it.
Selections from His Notebook. Reprinted in Memories and Portraits, Memoirs of Himself and Selections from His Notebook (1924, 2003), 184.
Science quotes on:  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Opponent (23)  |  Selection (130)  |  Surprise (91)

I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. The dove is my emblem.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dive (13)  |  Emblem (4)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Give (208)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Improve (64)  |  Invent (57)  |  Invention (400)  |  Item (4)  |  Kill (100)  |  Life (1870)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Pick Up (5)  |  Pride (84)  |  Save (126)  |  Service (110)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Want (504)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

I never really paused for a moment to question the idea that the progressive Spiritualization of Matter—so clearly demonstrated to me by Paleontology—could be anything other, or anything less, than an irreversible process. By its gravitational nature, the Universe, I saw, was falling—falling forwards—in the direction of spirit as upon its stable form. In other words, Matter was not ultra-materialized as I would at first have believed, but was instead metamorphosed in Psyche.
In The Heart of Matter (1978), 27-28.
Science quotes on:  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Direction (185)  |  Fall (243)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Idea (881)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Materialize (2)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metamorphose (2)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Process (439)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Psyche (9)  |  Question (649)  |  Saw (160)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spiritualization (2)  |  Stable (32)  |  Universe (900)  |  Word (650)

I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one. When people talked about the fall of man, they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn’t understand. Now they talk about the survival of the fittest: they think they do understand it, whereas they have not merely no notion, they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean.
In The Club of Queer Trades (1903, 1905), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Fall (243)  |  False (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nasty (8)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Popular (34)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vague (50)  |  Word (650)

I never said it was possible. I only said it was true.
Science quotes on:  |  Possible (560)  |  Truth (1109)

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. When visiting the U.S. from Germany for a winter academic stay.
From interview aboard the liner Belgenland (Dec 1930).
Science quotes on:  |  Enough (341)  |  Future (467)  |  Soon (187)  |  Think (1122)  |  Winter (46)

I now never make the preparations for penetrating into some small province of nature hitherto undiscovered without breathing a prayer to the Being who hides His secrets from me only to allure me graciously on to the unfolding of them.
As quoted in E.P. Whipple, 'Recollections of Agassiz', in Henry Mills Alden (ed.), Harper's New Monthly Magazine (June 1879), 59, 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Allure (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Graciously (2)  |  Hide (70)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Penetrating (3)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Province (37)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Secret (216)  |  Small (489)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Unfolding (16)

I often get letters … from people who say … I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature. … I reply … “Well, it’s funny that the people, when they say that this is evidence of the Almighty, always quote beautiful things … orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses.” But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he’s five years old. And I … say, “Well, presumably the God you speak about created the worm as well,” and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful God with that action. And therefore it seems to me safer to show things that I know to be truth, truthful and factual, and allow people to make up their own minds about the moralities of this thing, or indeed the theology of this thing.
From BBC TV, Life on Air (2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Africa (38)  |  Almighty (23)  |  Bank (31)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Blind (98)  |  Boring (7)  |  Boy (100)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Humming Bird (2)  |  Hummingbird (4)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Know (1538)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Orchid (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Quote (46)  |  Reply (58)  |  River (140)  |  Rose (36)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Show (353)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Speak (240)  |  Theology (54)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Worm (47)  |  Year (963)

I once spoke to a human geneticist who declared that the notion of intelligence was quite meaningless, so I tried calling him unintelligent. He was annoyed, and it did not appease him when I went on to ask how he came to attach such a clear meaning to the notion of lack of intelligence. We never spoke again.
In Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), 25, footnote 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Annoyed (2)  |  Appease (6)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attach (57)  |  Call (781)  |  Clear (111)  |  Declared (24)  |  Geneticist (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Lack (127)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Notion (120)  |  Unintelligent (2)

I publish this Essay in its present imperfect state, in order to prevent the furacious attempts of the prowling plagiary, and the insidious pretender to chymistry, from arrogating to themselves, and assuming my invention, in plundering silence: for there are those, who, if they can not be chymical, never fail by stratagem, and mechanical means, to deprive industry of the fruits, and fame of her labours.
Preface to An Essay on Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dyeing and Painting (1794), vii-viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Essay (27)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fame (51)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Industry (159)  |  Invention (400)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Order (638)  |  Plagiarism (10)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Publication (102)  |  Silence (62)  |  State (505)  |  Themselves (433)

I refrained from writing another one, thinking to myself: Never mind, I will prove that I am able to become a greater scientist than some of you, even without the title of doctor.
Reaction when his thesis (1922) on rocket experiments was rejected as too cursory. In Astronautics (1959), 4, No. 6, 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Degree (277)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Greater (288)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  PhD (10)  |  Prove (261)  |  Refrain (9)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

I regard sex as the central problem of life. And now that the problem of religion has practically been settled, and that the problem of labor has at least been placed on a practical foundation, the question of sex—with the racial questions that rest on it—stands before the coming generations as the chief problem for solution. Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897), Vol. 1, xxx.
Science quotes on:  |  Central (81)  |  Chief (99)  |  Coming (114)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Generation (256)  |  Know (1538)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Practical (225)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rest (287)  |  Root (121)  |  Settled (34)  |  Sex (68)  |  Solution (282)  |  Stand (284)  |  Understand (648)

I remember working out a blueprint for my future when I was twelve years old I resolved first to make enough money so I'd never be stopped from finishing anything; second, that to accumulate money in a hurry—and I was in a hurry—I'd have to invent something that people wanted. And third, that if I ever was going to stand on my own feet, I'd have to leave home.
In Sidney Shalett, 'Aviation’s Stormy Genius', Saturday Evening Post (13 Oct 1956), 229, No. 15, 26 & 155
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Blueprint (9)  |  Enough (341)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Home (184)  |  Hurry (16)  |  Invention (400)  |  Money (178)  |  Old (499)  |  People (1031)  |  Remember (189)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stop (89)  |  Want (504)  |  Year (963)

I saw a horrible brown heap on the floor in the corner, which, but for previous experience in this dismal wise, I might not have suspected to be “the bed.” There was something thrown upon it and I asked what it was. “’Tis the poor craythur that stays here, sur; and ’tis very bad she is, ’tis very bad she’s been this long time, and ’tis better she’ll never be, and ’tis slape she doos all day, and ’tis wake she doos all night, and ‘tis the lead, Sur.” “The what?” “The lead, Sur. Sure, ’tis the lead-mills, where women gets took on at eighteen pence a day, Sur, when they makes application early enough, and is lucky and wanted, and ’tis lead-pisoned she is, Sur, and some of them gits lead-pisoned soon and some of them gets lead-pisoned later, and some but not many, niver, and ’tis all according to the constitooshun, Sur, and some constitooshuns is strong, and some is weak, and her constitooshun is lead-pisoned, bad as can be, Sur, and her brain is coming out at her ear, and it hurts her dreadful, and that’s what it is and niver no more and niver so less, Sur.”
In 'New Uncommercial Samples: A Small Star in the East', All the Year Round (19 Dec 1868), New Series, No. 3, 62.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Application (257)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bad (185)  |  Better (493)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brown (23)  |  Coming (114)  |  Corner (59)  |  Disabled (2)  |  Disease (340)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  Ear (69)  |  Early (196)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experience (494)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lead Poisoning (4)  |  Long (778)  |  Mill (16)  |  More (2558)  |  Poor (139)  |  Saw (160)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Strong (182)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wise (143)

I shall explain a System of the World differing in many particulars from any yet known, answering in all things to the common Rules of Mechanical Motions: This depends upon three Suppositions. First, That all Cœlestial Bodies whatsoever, have an attraction or gravitating power towards their own Centers, whereby they attract not only their own parts, and keep them from flying from them, as we may observe the Earth to do, but that they do also attract all the other Cœlestial bodies that are within the sphere of their activity; and consequently that not only the Sun and Moon have an influence upon the body and motion the Earth, and the Earth upon them, but that Mercury also Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter by their attractive powers, have a considerable influence upon its motion in the same manner the corresponding attractive power of the Earth hath a considerable influence upon every one of their motions also. The second supposition is this, That all bodies whatsoever that are put into a direct and simple motion, will continue to move forward in a streight line, till they are by some other effectual powers deflected and bent into a Motion, describing a Circle, Ellipse, or some other more compounded Curve Line. The third supposition is, That these attractive powers are so much the more powerful in operating, by how much the nearer the body wrought upon is to their own Centers. Now what these several degrees are I have not yet experimentally verified; but it is a notion, which if fully prosecuted as it ought to be, will mightily assist the Astronomer to reduce all the Cœlestial Motions to a certain rule, which I doubt will never be done true without it. He that understands the nature of the Circular Pendulum and Circular Motion, will easily understand the whole ground of this Principle, and will know where to find direction in Nature for the true stating thereof. This I only hint at present to such as have ability and opportunity of prosecuting this Inquiry, and are not wanting of Industry for observing and calculating, wishing heartily such may be found, having myself many other things in hand which I would first compleat and therefore cannot so well attend it. But this I durst promise the Undertaker, that he will find all the Great Motions of the World to be influenced by this Principle, and that the true understanding thereof will be the true perfection of Astronomy.
An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations (1674), 27-8. Based on a Cutlerian Lecture delivered by Hooke at the Royal Society four years earlier.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Activity (218)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attend (67)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circular (19)  |  Circular Motion (7)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Continue (179)  |  Curve (49)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direct (228)  |  Direction (185)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ellipse (8)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Flying (74)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hint (21)  |  Industry (159)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observe (179)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Promise (72)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supposition (50)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Venus (21)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

I shall never forget my first encounter with gorillas. Sound preceded sight. Odor preceded sound in the form of an overwhelming, musky-barnyard, humanlike scent. The air was suddenly rent by a high-pitched series of screams followed by the rhythmic rondo of sharp pok-pok chestbeats from a great silverbacked male obscured behind what seemed an impenetrable wall of vegetation.
Describing her 1963 trip to Kabara in Gorillas in the Mist (1983), 3. (The screams and chest-beating were of alarm, not ferocity.)
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Barnyard (2)  |  Behind (139)  |  Encounter (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forget (125)  |  Form (976)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Impenetrable (7)  |  Musk (2)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Odor (11)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Scent (7)  |  Scream (7)  |  Series (153)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Sight (135)  |  Silverback (2)  |  Sound (187)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wall (71)

I shall never forget the sight. The vessel of crystallization was three quarters full of slightly muddy water—that is, dilute water-glass—and from the sandy bottom there strove upwards a grotesque little landscape of variously colored growths: a confused vegetation of blue, green, and brown shoots which reminded one of algae, mushrooms, attached polyps, also moss, then mussels, fruit pods, little trees or twigs from trees, here, and there of limbs. It was the most remarkable sight I ever saw, and remarkable not so much for its profoundly melancholy nature. For when Father Leverkühn asked us what we thought of it and we timidly answered him that they might be plants: “No,” he replied, “they are not, they only act that way. But do not think the less of them. Precisely because they do, because they try as hard as they can, they are worthy of all respect.”
It turned out that these growths were entirely unorganic in their origin; they existed by virtue of chemicals from the apothecary's shop.
Description of a “chemical garden” in Doktor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn, as Told by a Friend, (1947), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Algae (7)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apothecary (10)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Brown (23)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Color (155)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Father (113)  |  Forget (125)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Glass (94)  |  Green (65)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hard (246)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Little (717)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  Moss (14)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mushroom (4)  |  Mussel (2)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pod (2)  |  Polyp (4)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Respect (212)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sight (135)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tree (269)  |  Try (296)  |  Turn (454)  |  Twig (15)  |  Upward (44)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)

I should never have made a good scientist, but I should have made a perfectly adequate one.
Interview with John Halperin. C. P. Snow, An Oral Biography, (1983), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Scientist (881)

I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about the problem of space and time. These are things which he has thought of as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.
In Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (1971), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Already (226)  |  Ask (420)  |  Begin (275)  |  Child (333)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Myself (211)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reason (766)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Result (700)  |  Retarded (5)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Stop (89)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wonder (251)

I specifically paused to show that, if there were such machines with the organs and shape of a monkey or of some other non-rational animal, we would have no way of discovering that they are not the same as these animals. But if there were machines that resembled our bodies and if they imitated our actions as much as is morally possible, we would always have two very certain means for recognizing that, none the less, they are not genuinely human. The first is that they would never be able to use speech, or other signs composed by themselves, as we do to express our thoughts to others. For one could easily conceive of a machine that is made in such a way that it utters words, and even that it would utter some words in response to physical actions that cause a change in its organs—for example, if someone touched it in a particular place, it would ask what one wishes to say to it, or if it were touched somewhere else, it would cry out that it was being hurt, and so on. But it could not arrange words in different ways to reply to the meaning of everything that is said in its presence, as even the most unintelligent human beings can do. The second means is that, even if they did many things as well as or, possibly, better than anyone of us, they would infallibly fail in others. Thus one would discover that they did not act on the basis of knowledge, but merely as a result of the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need a specific disposition for every particular action.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 5, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Ask (420)  |  Basis (180)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cry (30)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Express (192)  |  Fail (191)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organ (118)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Presence (63)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reply (58)  |  Response (56)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Situation (117)  |  Specific (98)  |  Speech (66)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Touch (146)  |  Two (936)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

I spend a great deal of the hours that I’m awake within myself. You never want to stop doing it, especially when it’s a pleasure. It’s vital to my existence and I couldn’t live if I wasn’t an inventor.
Quoted in Timothy L. O’Brien, 'Not Invented here: Are U.S. Innovators Losing Their Competitive Edge?', New York Times (13 Nov 2005), B6.
Science quotes on:  |  Awake (19)  |  Deal (192)  |  Doing (277)  |  Existence (481)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hour (192)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Live (650)  |  Myself (211)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Spend (97)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Vital (89)  |  Want (504)

I spent most of a lifetime trying to be a mathematician—and what did I learn. What does it take to be one? I think I know the answer: you have to be born right, you must continually strive to become perfect, you must love mathematics more than anything else, you must work at it hard and without stop, and you must never give up.
In I Want to be a Mathematician: an Automathography (1985), 400.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Become (821)  |  Biography (254)  |  Born (37)  |  Give Up (10)  |  Hard (246)  |  Know (1538)  |  Know The Answer (9)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Right (473)  |  Spent (85)  |  Stop (89)  |  Strive (53)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trying (144)  |  Work (1402)

I started studying law, but this I could stand just for one semester. I couldn’t stand more. Then I studied languages and literature for two years. After two years I passed an examination with the result I have a teaching certificate for Latin and Hungarian for the lower classes of the gymnasium, for kids from 10 to 14. I never made use of this teaching certificate. And then I came to philosophy, physics, and mathematics. In fact, I came to mathematics indirectly. I was really more interested in physics and philosophy and thought about those. It is a little shortened but not quite wrong to say: I thought I am not good enough for physics and I am too good for philosophy. Mathematics is in between.
From interview on his 90th birthday. In D J Albers and G L Alexanderson (eds.), Mathematical People: Profiles and Interviews (1985), 245-254.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Certificate (3)  |  Enough (341)  |  Examination (102)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Good (906)  |  Good Enough (4)  |  In Between (2)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Interest (416)  |  Language (308)  |  Latin (44)  |  Law (913)  |  Literature (116)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Stand (284)  |  Start (237)  |  Studying (70)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up, and they keep their curiosity.
In Jeremy Bernstein, 'Rabi: The Modern Age', Experiencing Science (1978), 102. Part of Rabi’s response to Bernstein’s interview question, about at which age, in his opinion, physicists tend to run down. Previously published in 'Physicist', The New Yorker (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Grow (247)  |  Grow Up (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Keep (104)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Race (278)  |  Think (1122)

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall
I’ll never see a tree at all.
In 'Song of the Open Road', Happy Days (1933), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Billboard (2)  |  Fall (243)  |  Lovely (12)  |  Poem (104)  |  See (1094)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tree (269)

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Trees and Other Poems (1914), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Branch (155)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fool (121)  |  God (776)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Lift (57)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Nest (26)  |  Poem (104)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Rain (70)  |  Robin (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Snow (39)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tree (269)

I think that science would never have achieved much progress if it had always imagined unknown obstacles hidden round every corner. At least we may peer gingerly round the corner, and perhaps we shall find there is nothing very formidable after all.
In Stars and Atoms (1927), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Corner (59)  |  Find (1014)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Progress (492)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unknown (195)

I think that the unity we can seek lies really in two things. One is that the knowledge which comes to us at such a terrifyingly, inhumanly rapid rate has some order in it. We are allowed to forget a great deal, as well as to learn. This order is never adequate. The mass of ununderstood things, which cannot be summarized, or wholly ordered, always grows greater; but a great deal does get understood.
The second is simply this: we can have each other to dinner. We ourselves, and with each other by our converse, can create, not an architecture of global scope, but an immense, intricate network of intimacy, illumination, and understanding. Everything cannot be connected with everything in the world we live in. Everything can be connected with anything.
Concluding paragraphs of 'The Growth of Science and the Structure of Culture', Daedalus (Winter 1958), 87, No. 1, 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connected (8)  |  Converse (9)  |  Create (245)  |  Deal (192)  |  Dinner (15)  |  Everything (489)  |  Forget (125)  |  Global (39)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Grow (247)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Immense (89)  |  Intimacy (6)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Mass (160)  |  Network (21)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rate (31)  |  Scope (44)  |  Seek (218)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)  |  Unity (81)  |  Wholly (88)  |  World (1850)

I think that we shall have to get accustomed to the idea that we must not look upon science as a 'body of knowledge,' but rather as a system of hypotheses; that is to say, as a system of guesses or anticipations which in principle cannot be justified, but with which we work as long as they stand up to tests, and of which we are never justified in saying that we know they are 'true' or 'more or less certain' or even 'probable.'
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), 317.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Anticipation (18)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Justification (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Say (989)  |  Stand (284)  |  System (545)  |  Test (221)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Work (1402)

I think, and I am not the only one who does, that it is important never to introduce any conception which may not be completely defined by a finite number of words. Whatever may be the remedy adopted, we can promise ourselves the joy of the physician called in to follow a beautiful pathological case [beau cas pathologique].
From address read at the general session of the Fourth International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome (10 Apr 1908). As translated in 'The Future of Mathematics: by Henri Poincaré', General Appendix, Annual Report of the Boars of Regents of The Smithsonian Institution: For the Year Ending June 1909 (1910), 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Adopt (22)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Call (781)  |  Case (102)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conception (160)  |  Define (53)  |  Finite (60)  |  Follow (389)  |  Important (229)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Joy (117)  |  Number (710)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Physician (284)  |  Promise (72)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Think (1122)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Word (650)

I venture to assert that the feelings one has when the beautiful symbolism of the infinitesimal calculus first gets a meaning, or when the delicate analysis of Fourier has been mastered, or while one follows Clerk Maxwell or Thomson into the strange world of electricity, now growing so rapidly in form and being, or can almost feel with Stokes the pulsations of light that gives nature to our eyes, or track with Clausius the courses of molecules we can measure, even if we know with certainty that we can never see them I venture to assert that these feelings are altogether comparable to those aroused in us by an exquisite poem or a lofty thought.
In paper (May 1891) read before Bath Branch of the Teachers’ Guild, published in The Practical Teacher (July 1891), reprinted as 'Geometry', in Frederic Spencer, Chapters on the Aims and Practice of Teaching (1897), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Arouse (13)  |  Assert (69)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Rudolf Clausius (9)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Comparable (7)  |  Course (413)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Growing (99)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Infinitesimal Calculus (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measure (241)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Poem (104)  |  Pulsation (4)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  See (1094)  |  Sir George Gabriel Stokes (3)  |  Strange (160)  |  Symbolism (5)  |  Sir J.J. Thomson (18)  |  Thought (995)  |  Track (42)  |  World (1850)

I was in continual agony; I have never in my life been so tired as on the summit of Everest that day. I just sat and sat there, oblivious to everything … I knew I was physically at the end of my tether.
In All 14 Eight-Thousanders (1999), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Agony (7)  |  Continual (44)  |  Everest (10)  |  Everything (489)  |  Life (1870)  |  Oblivious (9)  |  Sit (51)  |  Summit (27)  |  Tired (13)

I wept when I saw the color of the sea—how can a mere color make one cry? Or moonlight, or the luminescence of the sea in a pitch black night? … But if there is one thing which is more worthy of our admiration than natural beauty, it is the art of men who have conquered this never-ending sea so Fully in a struggle that has been going since the time of the Phoenicians.
In an article 'Voyage of a German Professor to Eldorado' describing his summer 1905 travels for a series of lectures at Berkeley in America. As quoted in, George Greenstein, 'The Bulldog: A Profile of Ludwig Boltzmann', The American Scholar (1 Jan 1999), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Art (680)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Black (46)  |  Color (155)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Cry (30)  |  Luminescence (2)  |  Mere (86)  |  Moonlight (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Beauty (5)  |  Night (133)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weep (5)

I wish I were a glow-worm.
A glow-worm’s never glum.
How can you be unhappy,
When a light shines out your bum.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Bum (3)  |  Glow-Worm (3)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Light (635)  |  Shining (35)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worm (47)

I would be the last to deny that the greatest scientific pioneers belonged to an aristocracy of the spirit and were exceptionally intelligent, something that we as modest investigators will never attain, no matter how much we exert ourselves. Nevertheless … I continue to believe that there is always room for anyone with average intelligence … to utilize his energy and … any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain, and that even the least gifted may, like the poorest land that has been well-cultivated and fertilized, produce an abundant harvest..
From Preface to the second edition, Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), xv.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Aristocracy (7)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Average (89)  |  Belief (615)  |  Belong (168)  |  Brain (281)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cultivated (7)  |  Deny (71)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Exert (40)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Fertilized (2)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Land (131)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modest (19)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Poorest (2)  |  Produce (117)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sculptor (10)  |  Something (718)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Utilize (10)  |  Will (2350)

I would clarify that by ‘animal’ I understand a being that has feeling and that is capable of exercising life functions through a principle called soul; that the soul uses the body's organs, which are true machines, by virtue of its being the principal cause of the action of each of the machine's parts; and that although the placement that these parts have with respect to one another does scarcely anything else through the soul's mediation than what it does in pure machines, the entire machine nonetheless needs to be activated and guided by the soul in the same way as an organ, which, although capable of rendering different sounds through the placement of the parts of which it is composed, nonetheless never does so except through the guidance of the organist.
'La Mechanique des Animaux', in Oeuvres Diverses de Physique et de Mechanique (1721), Vol. 1, 329. Quoted in Jacques Roger, Keith R. Benson (ed.), Robert Ellrich (trans.), The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, (1997), 273-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Activation (6)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clarification (8)  |  Composition (86)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Function (235)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mediation (4)  |  Organ (118)  |  Part (235)  |  Principal (69)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pure (299)  |  Respect (212)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sound (187)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)

I would efface the word atoms from science, persuaded that it goes further than experience... In chemistry we should never go further than experience. Could there be any hope of ever identifying the minuscule entities?
Quoted, without citation, in Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics, (1985), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Efface (6)  |  Entity (37)  |  Experience (494)  |  Further (6)  |  Hope (321)  |  Identifying (2)  |  Persuation (2)  |  Word (650)

I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who “ligate” arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.
'Scholastic and Bedside Teaching', Introductory Lecture to the Medical Class of Harvard University (6 Nov 1867). In Medical Essays 1842-1882 (1891), 302.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Country (269)  |  Know (1538)  |  Long (778)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Professor (133)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Short (200)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Tie (42)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, being brought personally to judgment, and kneeling before your Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords Cardinals, General Inquisitors of the universal Christian republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands, swear that I have always believed, and now believe, and with the help of God will in future believe, every article which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome holds, teaches, and preaches. But because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office altogether to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the sun is the centre and immovable, and forbidden to hold, defend, or teach the said false doctrine in any manner, and after it hath been signified to me that the said doctrine is repugnant with the Holy Scripture, I have written and printed a book, in which I treat of the same doctrine now condemned, and adduce reasons with great force in support of the same, without giving any solution, and therefore have been judged grievously suspected of heresy; that is to say, that I held and believed that the sun is the centre of the universe and is immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and is movable; willing, therefore, to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of every Catholic Christian, this vehement suspicion rightfully entertained toward me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to Holy Church; and I swear that I will never more in future say or assert anything verbally, or in writing, which may give rise to a similar suspicion of me; but if I shall know any heretic, or anyone suspected of heresy, that I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be; I swear, moreover, and promise, that I will fulfil and observe fully, all the penances which have been or shall be laid on me by this Holy Office. But if it shall happen that I violate any of my said promises, oaths, and protestations (which God avert!), I subject myself to all the pains and punishments which have been decreed and promulgated by the sacred canons, and other general and particular constitutions, against delinquents of this description. So may God help me, and his Holy Gospels which I touch with my own hands. I, the above-named Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above, and in witness thereof with my own hand have subscribed this present writing of my abjuration, which I have recited word for word. At Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, June 22, 1633. I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.
Abjuration, 22 Jun 1633. In J.J. Fahie, Galileo, His Life and Work (1903), 319-321.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abjuration (3)  |  Against (332)  |  Assert (69)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Bound (120)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Catholic (18)  |  Christian (44)  |  Church (64)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Curse (20)  |  Denounce (6)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Error (339)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faith (209)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heliocentric Model (7)  |  Heretic (8)  |  Holy (35)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Late (119)  |  Lord (97)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Oath (10)  |  Observe (179)  |  Office (71)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Present (630)  |  Promise (72)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remove (50)  |  Republic (16)  |  Repugnant (8)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rome (19)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Say (989)  |  Solution (282)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Support (151)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Swear (7)  |  Teach (299)  |  Touch (146)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)  |  Witness (57)  |  Word (650)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

I, however, believe that for the ripening of experience the light of an intelligent theory is required. People are amused by the witticism that the man with a theory forces from nature that answer to his question which he wishes to have but nature never answers unless she is questioned, or to speak more accurately, she is always talking to us and with a thousand tongues but we only catch the answer to our own question.
Quoted in Major Greenwood, Epidemiology Historical and Experimental. The Herter Lectures for 1931 (1932), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Experience (494)  |  Force (497)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  People (1031)  |  Question (649)  |  Required (108)  |  Speak (240)  |  Talking (76)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tongue (44)

I’m such a long-term investor, I’ve never really let go and celebrated what I did with the Hubble telescope.
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
Science quotes on:  |  Celebration (7)  |  Hubble Space Telescope (9)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Term (357)

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Concluding stanza of poem 'On Turning 70'. The poem is printed in Michigan Office of Services to the Aging, Annual Report 2004 (2005), no page number.
Science quotes on:  |  Feel (371)  |  Forget (125)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  People (1031)  |  Say (989)  |  Will (2350)

I’ve met a lot of people in important positions, and he [Wernher von Braun] was one that I never had any reluctance to give him whatever kind of credit they deserve. He owned his spot, he knew what he was doing, and he was very impressive when you met with him. He understood the problems. He could come back and straighten things out. He moved with sureness whenever he came up with a decision. Of all the people, as I think back on it now, all of the top management that I met at NASA, many of them are very, very good. But Wernher, relative to the position he had and what he had to do, I think was the best of the bunch.
From interview with Ron Stone (24 May 1999) for NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project on NASA website.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Best (467)  |  Wernher von Braun (29)  |  Credit (24)  |  Decision (98)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Good (906)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lot (151)  |  Management (23)  |  Manager (6)  |  NASA (12)  |  People (1031)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reluctance (6)  |  Spot (19)  |  Sureness (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Top (100)  |  Understood (155)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whenever (81)

I’ve never consciously tried to keep myself out of anything I write, and I’ve always talked clearly when people interview me. I don’t think my life is too interesting. It’s lived mainly inside my brain.
As quoted by Lawrence Toppman, 'Mastermind', The Charlotte Observer (20 Jun 1993), 1E, 6E. As quoted and cited in Dana Richards, 'Martin Gardner: A “Documentary”', collected in Elwyn R. Berlekamp and Tom Rodgers (ed.) The Mathemagician and Pied Puzzler: A Collection in Tribute to Martin Gardner (1999), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Brain (281)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Inside (30)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Interview (5)  |  Keep Out (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Myself (211)  |  People (1031)  |  Talk (108)  |  Think (1122)  |  Write (250)

I’ve never looked through a keyhole without finding someone was looking back.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Find (1014)  |  Keyhole (5)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Someone (24)  |  Through (846)

I’ve never made a discovery myself, unless by accident. If you write glibly, you fool people. When I first met Asimov, I asked him if he was a professor at Boston University. He said no and … asked me where I got my Ph.D. I said I didn’t have one and he looked startled. “You mean you’re in the same racket I am,” he said, “you just read books by the professors and rewrite them?” That’s really what I do.
Quoted in Sally Helgeson, 'Every Day', Bookletter (6 Dec 1976), 3, No. 8, 3. As quoted and cited in Dana Richards, 'Martin Gardner: A “Documentary”', collected in Elwyn R. Berlekamp and Tom Rodgers (ed.) The Mathemagician and Pied Puzzler: A Collection in Tribute to Martin Gardner (1999), 8-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Isaac Asimov (267)  |  Ask (420)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Boston (7)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Fool (121)  |  Glib (2)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Myself (211)  |  People (1031)  |  PhD (10)  |  Professor (133)  |  Read (308)  |  Startle (6)  |  University (130)  |  Write (250)

I’ve never owned a telescope, but it’s something I'm thinking of looking into.
Brain Droppings (1998), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Looking (191)  |  Something (718)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thinking (425)

I've always felt that maybe one of the reasons that I did well as a student and made such good grades was because I lacked ... self-confidence, and I never felt that I was prepared to take an examination, and I had to study a little bit extra. So that sort of lack of confidence helped me, I think, to make a good record when I was a student.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Education (423)  |  Examination (102)  |  Good (906)  |  Lack (127)  |  Little (717)  |  Reason (766)  |  Record (161)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Confidence (11)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Think (1122)

I've never seen a job being done by a five-hundred-person engineering team that couldn't be done better by fifty people.
Statement once told to the author, as quoted in Thomas J. Peters, Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties (1992), 572.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Job (86)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Team (17)

If a given scientist had not made a given discovery, someone else would have done so a little later. Johann Mendel dies unknown after having discovered the laws of heredity: thirty-five years later, three men rediscover them. But the book that is not written will never be written. The premature death of a great scientist delays humanity; that of a great writer deprives it.
Pensées d'un Biologiste (1939). Translated in The Substance of Man (1962), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Delay (21)  |  Deprivation (5)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Else (4)  |  Given (5)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Later (18)  |  Law (913)  |  Little (717)  |  Gregor Mendel (22)  |  Premature (22)  |  Rediscovery (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Someone (24)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)  |  Writer (90)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.
Translation in Francis Bacon, James Spedding (ed.) et al., Works of Francis Bacon (1858) Vol. 6, 498.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Call (781)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Must (1525)  |  Study (701)  |  Wit (61)

If an explanation is so vague in its inherent nature, or so unskillfully molded in its formulation, that specific deductions subject to empirical verification or refutation can not be based upon it, then it can never serve as a working hypothesis. A hypothesis with which one can not work is not a working hypothesis.
'Role of Analysis in Scientific Investigation', Bulletin of the Geological Society of America (1933), 44, 479.
Science quotes on:  |  Deduction (90)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Mold (37)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Specific (98)  |  Subject (543)  |  Vague (50)  |  Verification (32)  |  Work (1402)

If atoms do, by chance, happen to combine themselves into so many shapes, why have they never combined together to form a house or a slipper? By the same token, why do we not believe that if innumerable letters of the Greek alphabet were poured all over the market-place they would eventually happen to form the text of the Iliad?
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Book 2, Chapter 12, 'Apology for Raymond Sebond', trans. M. A. Screech (1991), 612.
Science quotes on:  |  Alphabet (14)  |  Atom (381)  |  Belief (615)  |  Chance (244)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Greek (109)  |  Happen (282)  |  House (143)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Letter (117)  |  Market (23)  |  Pour (9)  |  Shape (77)  |  Text (16)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Token (10)  |  Why (491)

If he [Faraday] had allowed his vision to be disturbed by considerations regarding the practical use of his discoveries, those discoveries would never have been made by him.
In Faraday as a Discoverer (1868), 43. Introducing a quote by Faraday explaining his preference to focus on research, and letting others find applications: “I have rather rather been desirous of discovering new facts and new relations dependent on magneto-electric induction, than of exalting the force of those already obtained; being assured that the latter would find their full development hereafter.” (1831). For that source, see Michael Faraday Quotations.
Science quotes on:  |  Consideration (143)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Practical (225)  |  Use (771)  |  Vision (127)

If I had been taught from my youth all the truths of which I have since sought out demonstrations, and had thus learned them without labour, I should never, perhaps, have known any beyond these; at least, I should never have acquired the habit and the facility which I think I possess in always discovering new truths in proportion as I give myself to the search.
In Discours de la Méthode (1637). In English from John Veitch (trans.), A Discourse on Method (1912), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discover (571)  |  Facility (14)  |  Habit (174)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Possess (157)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Search (175)  |  Seek (218)  |  Teach (299)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Youth (109)

If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family.
Attributed without further citation. In Edmund Fuller, Thesaurus of Quotations (1941), 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternate (3)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Family (101)  |  Husband (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Three (10)  |  Wife (41)

If one small and odd lineage of fishes had not evolved fins capable of bearing weight on land (though evolved for different reasons in lakes and seas,) terrestrial vertebrates would never have arisen. If a large extraterrestrial object—the ultimate random bolt from the blue—had not triggered the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, mammals would still be small creatures, confined to the nooks and crannies of a dinosaur's world, and incapable of evolving the larger size that brains big enough for self-consciousness require. If a small and tenuous population of protohumans had not survived a hundred slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (and potential extinction) on the savannas of Africa, then Homo sapiens would never have emerged to spread throughout the globe. We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (1996), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Africa (38)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Bolt (11)  |  Bolt From The Blue (2)  |  Brain (281)  |  Capable (174)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creature (242)  |  Different (595)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Lake (36)  |  Large (398)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Object (438)  |  Population (115)  |  Potential (75)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Random (42)  |  Reason (766)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Sea (326)  |  Self (268)  |  Sling (4)  |  Small (489)  |  Spread (86)  |  Still (614)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Weight (140)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Yearn (13)

If our intention had been merely to bring back a handful of soil and rocks from the lunar gravel pit and then forget the whole thing, we would certainly be history's biggest fools. But that is not our intention now—it never will be. What we are seeking in tomorrow's [Apollo 11] trip is indeed that key to our future on earth. We are expanding the mind of man. We are extending this God-given brain and these God-given hands to their outermost limits and in so doing all mankind will benefit. All mankind will reap the harvest…. What we will have attained when Neil Armstrong steps down upon the moon is a completely new step in the evolution of man.
Banquet speech on the eve of the Apollo 11 launch, Royal Oaks Country Club, Titusville (15 Jul 1969). In "Of a Fire on the Moon", Life (29 Aug 1969), 67, No. 9, 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Apollo 11 (7)  |  Neil Armstrong (17)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Back (395)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Brain (281)  |  Bringing (10)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Completely (137)  |  Doing (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Fool (121)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgetting (13)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Handful (14)  |  Harvest (28)  |  History (716)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intention (46)  |  Key (56)  |  Limit (294)  |  Lunar (9)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Pit (20)  |  Reap (19)  |  Reaping (4)  |  Rock (176)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Soil (98)  |  Step (234)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Trip (11)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

If the NSF had never existed, if the government had never funded American mathematics, we would have half as many mathematicians as we now have, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
From interview (1981) with Donald J. Albers. In John H. Ewing and Frederick W. Gehring, Paul Halmos Celebrating 50 Years of Mathematics (1991), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Exist (458)  |  Fund (19)  |  Funding (20)  |  Government (116)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  See (1094)  |  Wrong (246)

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Creature (242)  |  Dark (145)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)

If there is such a thing as luck, then I must be the most unlucky fellow in the world. I’ve never once made a lucky strike in all my life. When I get after something that I need, I start finding everything in the world that I don’t need—one damn thing after another. I find ninety-nine things that I don’t need, and then comes number one hundred, and that—at the very last—turns out to be just what I had been looking for.
In Martin André Rosanoff, 'Edison in His Laboratory', Harper’s Magazine (Sep 1932), 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Everything (489)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Luck (44)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Strike (72)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  World (1850)

If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, ‘at the workingman’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.’ Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for ‘industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them.’
Published in Poor Richard's Almanac. Collected in Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1834), 477.
Science quotes on:  |  Dare (55)  |  Debt (15)  |  Despair (40)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enter (145)  |  House (143)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Industrious (12)  |  Industry (159)  |  Look (584)  |  Pay (45)  |  Starvation (13)  |  Will (2350)  |  Workingman (2)

If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must employ methods never before attempted.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Achieve (75)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Employ (115)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Result (700)

If we can abstract pathogenicity and hygiene from our notion of dirt, we are left with the old definition of dirt as matter out of place. This is a very suggestive approach. It implies two conditions: a set of ordered relations and a contravention of that order. Dirt then, is never a unique, isolated event.
In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966), 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Approach (112)  |  Condition (362)  |  Definition (238)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Event (222)  |  Hygiene (13)  |  Matter (821)  |  Notion (120)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Pathogen (5)  |  Set (400)  |  Two (936)  |  Unique (72)

If we want an answer from nature, we must put our questions in acts, not words, and the acts may take us to curious places. Some questions were answered in the laboratory, others in mines, others in a hospital where a surgeon pushed tubes in my arteries to get blood samples, others on top of Pike’s Peak in the Rocky Mountains, or in a diving dress on the bottom of the sea. That is one of the things I like about scientific research. You never know where it will take you next.
From essay 'Some Adventures of a Biologist', as quoted in Ruth Moore, Man, Time, And Fossils (1953), 174.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Answer (389)  |  Artery (10)  |  Blood (144)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Bottom Of The Sea (5)  |  Curious (95)  |  Dive (13)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Other (2233)  |  Place (192)  |  Push (66)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Rocky Mountains (2)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sea (326)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Top (100)  |  Tube (6)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.
In 'The Value of Science,' What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988, 2001), 247. Collected in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (2000), 149.
Science quotes on:  |  Door (94)  |  Learning (291)  |  Must (1525)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Want (504)

If you ask mathematicians what they do, you always get the same answer. They think. They think about difficult and unusual problems. (They never think about ordinary problems—they just write down the answers.)
As translated from Russian in 'A byl li brak?', Literaturnaya Gazeta (5 Dec 1979), 49, 12, as quoted and cited in The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 1980), 87, No. 97, 696.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Problem (731)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Write (250)

If you dream of something worth doing and then simply go to work on it and don't think anything of personalities, or emotional conflicts, or of money, or of family distractions; if you think of, detail by detail, what you have to do next, it is a wonderful dream even though the end is a long way off, for there are about five thousand steps to be taken before we realize it; and [when you] start taking the first ten, and ... twenty after that, it is amazing how quickly you get through through the four thousand [nine hundred] and ninety. The last ten steps you never seem to work out. But you keep on coming nearer to giving the world something.
Victor K. McElheny, Insisting on the Impossible (1999), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dream (222)  |  End (603)  |  Family (101)  |  First (1302)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Money (178)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Next (238)  |  Realize (157)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Step (234)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

If you find nothing, you are never to come begging at our door again.
To paleontologist Richard Leakey, regarding funding of Richard’s first dig in Kenya. As quoted in Sonia Mary Cole, Leakey's Luck: The Life of Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey, 1903-1972 (1975), 297.
Science quotes on:  |  Beg (5)  |  Door (94)  |  Find (1014)  |  Louis S.B. Leakey (3)  |  Nothing (1000)

If you go out to fight for freedom and truth, you should never wear your best trousers.
Dialog for Dr. Stockmann in play, An Enemy of the People (1882, 2001), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Fight (49)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Trousers (5)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wear (20)

If you throw a stone in a pond... the waves which strike against the shores are thrown back towards the spot where the stone struck; and on meeting other waves they never intercept each other’s course... In a small pond one and the same stroke gives birth to many motions of advance and recoil.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Against (332)  |  Back (395)  |  Birth (154)  |  Course (413)  |  Give (208)  |  Intercept (3)  |  Meet (36)  |  Motion (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pond (17)  |  Recoil (6)  |  Same (166)  |  Shore (25)  |  Small (489)  |  Spot (19)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strike (72)  |  Stroke (19)  |  Throw (45)  |  Wave (112)

If you’re going to worry about what people say, you’re never going to make any progress.
As quoted by Alvin Powell in 'A Transplant Makes History', Harvard Gazette (22 Sep 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  People (1031)  |  Progress (492)  |  Say (989)  |  Worry (34)

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
The Descent of Man (1871), Vol. 1, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  Problem (731)  |  Will (2350)

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
In Cosmos (1980), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends, and spirit - and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends, and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Back (395)  |  Balance (82)  |  Ball (64)  |  Bounce (2)  |  Damage (38)  |  Drop (77)  |  Family (101)  |  Five (16)  |  Friend (180)  |  Game (104)  |  Glass (94)  |  Health (210)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Irrevocably (2)  |  Keep (104)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mark (47)  |  Marked (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Nick (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Rubber (11)  |  Same (166)  |  Shatter (8)  |  Shattered (8)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Strive (53)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

In 1945, therefore, I proved a sentimental fool; and Mr. Truman could safely have classified me among the whimpering idiots he did not wish admitted to the presidential office. For I felt that no man has the right to decree so much suffering, and that science, in providing and sharpening the knife and in upholding the ram, had incurred a guilt of which it will never get rid. It was at that time that the nexus between science and murder became clear to me. For several years after the somber event, between 1947 and 1952, I tried desperately to find a position in what then appeared to me as a bucolic Switzerland,—but I had no success.
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Biography (254)  |  Decree (9)  |  Event (222)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fool (121)  |  Guilt (13)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Knife (24)  |  Man (2252)  |  Office (71)  |  Right (473)  |  Success (327)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)

In a University we are especially bound to recognise not only the unity of science itself, but the communion of the workers in science. We are too apt to suppose that we are congregated here merely to be within reach of certain appliances of study, such as museums and laboratories, libraries and lecturers, so that each of us may study what he prefers. I suppose that when the bees crowd round the flowers it is for the sake of the honey that they do so, never thinking that it is the dust which they are carrying from flower to flower which is to render possible a more splendid array of flowers, and a busier crowd of bees, in the years to come. We cannot, therefore, do better than improve the shining hour in helping forward the cross-fertilization of the sciences.
'The Telephone', Nature, 15, 1878. In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 743-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Appliance (9)  |  Bee (44)  |  Better (493)  |  Bound (120)  |  Certain (557)  |  Communion (3)  |  Congregation (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Flower (112)  |  Forward (104)  |  Honey (15)  |  Hour (192)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Library (53)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Museum (40)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Render (96)  |  Sake (61)  |  Shining (35)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Study (701)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Unity (81)  |  University (130)  |  Worker (34)  |  Year (963)

In all spheres of science, art, skill, and handicraft it is never doubted that, in order to master them, a considerable amount of trouble must be spent in learning and in being trained. As regards philosophy, on the contrary, there seems still an assumption prevalent that, though every one with eyes and fingers is not on that account in a position to make shoes if he only has leather and a last, yet everybody understands how to philosophize straight away, and pass judgment on philosophy, simply because he possesses the criterion for doing so in his natural reason.
From Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807) as translated by J.B. Baillie in 'Preface', The Phenomenology of Mind (1910), Vol. 1, 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Amount (153)  |  Art (680)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Doing (277)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Eye (440)  |  Finger (48)  |  Handicraft (3)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Leather (4)  |  Master (182)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Order (638)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Possess (157)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Shoe (12)  |  Skill (116)  |  Spent (85)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Still (614)  |  Straight (75)  |  Train (118)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Understand (648)

In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1774), vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Fail (191)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Other (2233)

In Euclid each proposition stands by itself; its connection with others is never indicated; the leading ideas contained in its proof are not stated; general principles do not exist. In modern methods, on the other hand, the greatest importance is attached to the leading thoughts which pervade the whole; and general principles, which bring whole groups of theorems under one aspect, are given rather than separate propositions. The whole tendency is toward generalization. A straight line is considered as given in its entirety, extending both ways to infinity, while Euclid is very careful never to admit anything but finite quantities. The treatment of the infinite is in fact another fundamental difference between the two methods. Euclid avoids it, in modern mathematics it is systematically introduced, for only thus is generality obtained.
In 'Geometry', Encyclopedia Britannica (9th edition).
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Both (496)  |  Bring (95)  |  Careful (28)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contain (68)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Entirety (6)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Finite (60)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Group (83)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Obtain (164)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Separate (151)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Systematically (7)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thought (995)  |  Toward (45)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that I never did know anything about it [electricity].
Science quotes on:  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Know (1538)

In fulfilling the wants of the public, a manufacturer should keep as far ahead as his imagination and his knowledge of his buying public will let him. One should never wait to see what it is a customer is going to want. Give him, rather, what he needs, before he has sensed that need himself.
As quoted by H.M. Davidson, in System: The Magazine of Business (Apr 1922), 41, 413.
Science quotes on:  |  Ahead (21)  |  Customer (8)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Himself (461)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Manufacturer (10)  |  Need (320)  |  Public (100)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Wait (66)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

In gaining knowledge you must accustom yourself to the strictest sequence. You must be familiar with the very groundwork of science before you try to climb the heights. Never start on the “next” before you have mastered the “previous.”
Translation of a note, 'Bequest of Pavlov to the Academic Youth of his Country', written a few days before his death for a student magazine, The Generation of the Victors. As published in 'Pavlov and the Spirit of Science', Nature (4 Apr 1936), 137, 572.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Groundwork (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Master (182)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Science And Education (17)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Start (237)  |  Try (296)

In general I would be cautious against … plays of fancy and would not make way for their reception into scientific astronomy, which must have quite a different character. Laplace’s cosmogenic hypotheses belong in that class. Indeed, I do not deny that I sometimes amuse myself in a similar manner, only I would never publish the stuff. My thoughts about the inhabitants of celestial bodies, for example, belong in that category. For my part, I am (contrary to the usual opinion) convinced … that the larger the cosmic body, the smaller are the inhabitants and other products. For example, on the sun trees, which in the same ratio would be larger than ours, as the sun exceeds the earth in magnitude, would not be able to exist, for on account of the much greater weight on the surface of the sun, all branches would break themselves off, in so far as the materials are not of a sort entirely heterogeneous with those on earth.
Letter to Heinrich Schumacher (7 Nov 1847). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 411.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Break (109)  |  Category (19)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Deny (71)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fancy (50)  |  General (521)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greater (288)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Reception (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tree (269)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)

In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be “known” with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.
In The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1963), Vol. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Effort (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Remain (355)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Uncertain (45)

IN MEMORIAM: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
She whom we love, our Lady of Compassion,
Can never die, for Love forbids her death.
Love has bent down in his old kindly fashion,
And breathed upon her his immortal breath.
On wounded soldiers, in their anguish lying,
Her gentle spirit shall descend like rain.
Where the white flag with the red cross is flying,
There shall she dwell, the vanquisher of pain.
[In remembrance of 'The Lady of the Lamp' who died 13 Aug 1910.]
In New York Times (29 Aug 1910), 6. Collected in Summer of Love (1911), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Breath (61)  |  Compassion (12)  |  Death (406)  |  Descend (49)  |  Down (455)  |  Flag (12)  |  Flying (74)  |  Forbid (14)  |  Immortal (35)  |  In Memoriam (2)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Love (328)  |  Lying (55)  |  Florence Nightingale (34)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Old (499)  |  Pain (144)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Rain (70)  |  Remembrance (5)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Spirit (278)  |  White (132)  |  Wound (26)

In my own field, x-ray crystallography, we used to work out the structure of minerals by various dodges which we never bothered to write down, we just used them. Then Linus Pauling came along to the laboratory, saw what we were doing and wrote out what we now call Pauling's Rules. We had all been using Pauling's Rules for about three or four years before Pauling told us what the rules were.
In The Extension of Man (1972), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Crystallography (9)  |  Doing (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Field (378)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Linus Pauling (60)  |  Ray (115)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saw (160)  |  Structure (365)  |  Various (205)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)  |  X-ray (43)  |  X-ray Crystallography (12)  |  Year (963)

In Nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it, and over it.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 183:24.
Science quotes on:  |  Connection (171)  |  Everything (489)  |  Nature (2017)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)

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

In our way of life … with every decision we make, we always keep in mind the seventh generation of children to come. … When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully, because we know that the faces of future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them.
Earth Day Pledge (1993)
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Decision (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Foot (65)  |  Forget (125)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Ground (222)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mother (116)  |  Plant (320)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)

In point of fact, no conclusive disproof of a theory can ever be produced; for it is always possible to say that the experimental results are not reliable or that the discrepancies which are asserted to exist between the experimental results and the theory are only apparent and that they will disappear with the advance of our understanding. If you insist on strict proof (or strict disproof) in the empirical sciences, you will never benefit from experience, and never learn from it how wrong you are.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery: Logik Der Forschung (1959, 2002), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Assert (69)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Conclusive (11)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empirical Science (9)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Learn (672)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Produced (187)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

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. It’s very rare that a senator, say, replies, “That’s a good argument. I will now change my political affiliation.”
From keynote address at CSICOP conference, Pasadena, California (3 Apr 1987). Printed in 'The Burden of Skepticism', Skeptical Inquirer (1987), 12, No. 1. Collected in Kendrick Frazier (ed.), The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal (1991), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Change (639)  |  Do (1905)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Old (499)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Rare (94)  |  Religion (369)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

In science, address the few; in literature, the many. In science, the few must dictate opinion to the many; in literature, the many, sooner or later, force their judgement on the few. But the few and the many are not necessarily the few and the many of the passing time: for discoverers in science have not un-often, in their own day, had the few against them; and writers the most permanently popular not unfrequently found, in their own day, a frigid reception from the many. By the few, I mean those who must ever remain the few, from whose dieta we, the multitude, take fame upon trust; by the many, I mean those who constitute the multitude in the long-run. We take the fame of a Harvey or a Newton upon trust, from the verdict of the few in successive generations; but the few could never persuade us to take poets and novelists on trust. We, the many, judge for ourselves of Shakespeare and Cervantes.
Caxtoniana: A Series of Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners (1863), Vol. 2, 329- 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Fame (51)  |  Force (497)  |  Generation (256)  |  William Harvey (30)  |  Judge (114)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Passing (76)  |  Poet (97)  |  Reception (16)  |  Remain (355)  |  Run (158)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Successive (73)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trust (72)  |  Verdict (8)  |  Writer (90)

In six thousand years, you could never grow wings on a reptile. With sixty million, however, you could have feathers, too.
Annals of the Former World
Science quotes on:  |  Feather (13)  |  Grow (247)  |  Million (124)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Sixty (6)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Wing (79)  |  Year (963)

In the days when geology was young, now some two hundred years ago, it found a careful foster-mother in theology, who watched over its early growth with anxious solicitude, and stored its receptive mind with the most beautiful stories, which the young science never tired of transforming into curious fancies of its own, which it usually styled “theories of the earth.”
In British Association Address to Workingmen, 'Geology and Deluges', published in Nature (1984), 50, 505-510. Also printed in Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1894), 46 245.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Curious (95)  |  Early (196)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Foster (12)  |  Geology (240)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mother (116)  |  Origin Of The Earth (13)  |  Receptive (5)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Story (122)  |  Theology (54)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)  |  Watch (118)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

In the gametes of an individual hybrid the Anlagen for each individual parental character are found in all possible combinations but never in a single gamete the Anlagen for a pair of characters. Each combination occurs with approximately the same frequency.
'Mendel's Regel über das Verhalten der Nachkommenschaft der Rassenbastarde', Der Deutsche Botanisch Gesellschaft, 1900, 18, 158-68. Trans. in Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (1982), 719.
Science quotes on:  |  Character (259)  |  Combination (150)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Gamete (5)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Individual (420)  |  Occur (151)  |  Possible (560)  |  Single (365)

In the Life of Darwin by his son, there is related an incident of how the great naturalist once studied long as to just what a certain spore was. Finally he said, “It is this, for if it isn’t, then what is it?” And all during his life he was never able to forget that he had been guilty of this unscientific attitude, for science is founded on certitude, not assumption.
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (May 1908), 26, No. 6, 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certitude (6)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgetting (13)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guilt (13)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Spore (3)  |  Unscientific (13)

In the old days, they killed the messenger who brought the bad news... a Cassandra is never popular in her time.
Quoted in Gayle Jacoba Greene The Woman Who Knew Too Much (1999).
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Biography (254)  |  Kill (100)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Old (499)  |  Time (1911)

In the patient who succumbed, the cause of death was evidently something which was not found in the patient who recovered; this something we must determine, and then we can act on the phenomena or recognize and foresee them accurately. But not by statistics shall we succeed in this; never have statistics taught anything, and never can they teach anything about the nature of the phenomenon.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Cause (561)  |  Death (406)  |  Determine (152)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Patient (209)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Something (718)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Succumb (6)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)

In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.
Gulliver's Travels (1726, Penguin ed. 1967), Part III, Chap. 6, 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chimera (10)  |  Choose (116)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Employment (34)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Extravagance (3)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  Fail (191)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Interest (416)  |  Irrational (16)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  Merit (51)  |  Minister (10)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Political (124)  |  Prince (13)  |  Professor (133)  |  Projector (3)  |  Qualified (12)  |  Scene (36)  |  Scheme (62)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Service (110)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unhappiness (9)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wisdom (235)

In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment. [Modern paraphrase; Darwin never wrote with these words.]
This is NOT AN AUTHENTIC Darwin quote. It is just a modern paraphrase, commonly seen in books and on the web. It is included here so that this caution can be attached to it.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Environment (239)  |  Modern (402)  |  Rival (20)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Win (53)  |  Word (650)

In the United States, I am often addressed as a doctor. I should like to point out, however, that I am not such and shall never think of becoming one.
In Astronautics (1959), 4, No. 6, 103. Also As quoted in Arthur C. Clarke, The Coming of the Space Age: Famous Accounts of Man’s Probing of the Probing of the Universe (1967), 118.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Point (584)  |  State (505)  |  Think (1122)  |  United States (31)

In the whole history of the world there was never a race with less liking for abstract reasoning than the Anglo-Saxon. … Common-sense and compromise are believed in, logical deductions from philosophical principles are looked upon with suspicion, not only by legislators, but by all our most learned professional men.
In Teaching of Mathematics (1902), 20-21.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Anglo-Saxon (2)  |  Belief (615)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Compromise (12)  |  Deduction (90)  |  History (716)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Legislator (4)  |  Less (105)  |  Logical (57)  |  Look (584)  |  Most (1728)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professional (77)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

In the world of science, however, these sentiments have never been of much account. There everything depends on making opinion prevail and dominate; few men are really independent; the majority draws the individual after it.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 191.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Draw (140)  |  Everything (489)  |  Independent (74)  |  Individual (420)  |  Majority (68)  |  Making (300)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  World (1850)

In this great celestial creation, the catastrophy of a world, such as ours, or even the total dissolution of a system of worlds, may possibly be no more to the great Author of Nature, than the most common accident in life with us, and in all probability such final and general Doomsdays may be as frequent there, as even Birthdays or mortality with us upon the earth. This idea has something so cheerful in it, that I know I can never look upon the stars without wondering why the whole world does not become astronomers; and that men endowed with sense and reason should neglect a science they are naturally so much interested in, and so capable of enlarging their understanding, as next to a demonstration must convince them of their immortality, and reconcile them to all those little difficulties incident to human nature, without the least anxiety. All this the vast apparent provision in the starry mansions seem to promise: What ought we then not to do, to preserve our natural birthright to it and to merit such inheritance, which alas we think created all to gratify alone a race of vain-glorious gigantic beings, while they are confined to this world, chained like so many atoms to a grain of sand.
In The Universe and the Stars: Being an Original Theory on the Visible Creation, Founded on the Laws of Nature (1750, 1837), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Alone (324)  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Atom (381)  |  Author (175)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Birthday (9)  |  Birthright (5)  |  Capable (174)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Common (447)  |  Convince (43)  |  Creation (350)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doomsday (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Final (121)  |  General (521)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Grain (50)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Merit (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Next (238)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Probability (135)  |  Promise (72)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reconcile (19)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)  |  Total (95)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vain (86)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

In view of the kind of matter we work with, it will never be possible to avoid little laboratory explosions.
Letter to Carl Jung, 18 Jun 1909. Quoted in William McGuire (ed.), The Freud-Jung Letters: The Correspondence between Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung (1974), 235.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Kind (564)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Little (717)  |  Matter (821)  |  Possible (560)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought—particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.
Side Effects (1981), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Finite (60)  |  Modern (402)  |  People (1031)  |  Remember (189)  |  Space (523)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Oath, in Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1923), Vol. 1, 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Abstain (7)  |  Bond (46)  |  Course (413)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enter (145)  |  Free (239)  |  Hear (144)  |  Holy (35)  |  House (143)  |  Man (2252)  |  Oath (10)  |  Outside (141)  |  Physician (284)  |  Profession (108)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Sick (83)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Wrong (246)

IODINE
It was Courtois discover'd Iodine
(In the commencement of this century),
Which, with its sisters, bromine and chlorine,
Enjoys a common parentage - the sea;
Although sometimes 'tis found, with other things,
In minerals and many saline springs.

But yet the quantity is so minute
In the great ocean, that a chemist might,
With sensibilities the most acute,
Have never brought this element to light,
Had he not thought it were as well to try
Where ocean's treasures concentrated lie.

And Courtois found that several plants marine,
Sponges, et cetera, exercise the art
Of drawing from the sea its iodine
In quantities sufficient to impart
Its properties; and he devised a plan
Of bringing it before us - clever man!
Anonymous
Discursive Chemical Notes in Rhyme (1876) by the Author of the Chemical Review, a B.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Biography (254)  |  Bromine (4)  |  Century (319)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Clever (41)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Common (447)  |  Discover (571)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Element (322)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impart (24)  |  Iodine (7)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Minute (129)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Plant (320)  |  Poem (104)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sea (326)  |  Spring (140)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Try (296)

Is science visionary? Is it not the hardest-headed intellectual discipline we know? How, then, does science look at this universe? Always as a bundle of possibilities. Habitually the scientist looks at this universe and every area in it as a bundle of possibilities, with no telling what might come if we fulfilled the conditions. Thomas Edison was no dreamer. He was a seer. The possibilities that he brought out were factually there. They were there before he saw them. They would have been there if he never had seen them. Always the possibilities are part of the actualities in any given situation.
In 'Don't Lose Faith in Human Possibilities', collected in Living Under Tension: Sermons On Christianity Today (1941), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Actuality (6)  |  Bundle (7)  |  Condition (362)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Dreamer (14)  |  Thomas Edison (83)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Habitually (2)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seer (5)  |  Situation (117)  |  Universe (900)  |  Visionary (6)

Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, on Christmas Day, 1642: a weakly and diminutive infant, of whom it is related that, at his birth, he might have found room in a quart mug. He died on March the 20th, 1727, after more than eighty-four years of more than average bodily health and vigour; it is a proper pendant to the story of the quart mug to state that he never lost more than one of his second teeth.
In Essays on the life and work of Newton (), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Birth (154)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Diminutive (3)  |  Health (210)  |  Infant (26)  |  March (48)  |  More (2558)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Pendant (2)  |  Proper (150)  |  State (505)  |  Story (122)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Year (963)

It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.
From paper 'Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Fix the Site of the University of Virginia', included in Annual Report of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia for the Fiscal Year Ending May 31, 1879 (1879), 10. Collected in Commonwealth of Virginia, Annual Reports of Officers, Boards, and Institutions of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for the Year Ending September 30, 1879 (1879).
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Art (680)  |  Better (493)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Degree (277)  |  Education (423)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Graft (4)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Native (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Perverse (5)  |  Producing (6)  |  Quality (139)  |  Savage (33)  |  Social (261)  |  Sour (3)  |  Stock (7)  |  Tree (269)  |  Uncultivated (2)  |  Vicious (5)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wild (96)  |  Worth (172)  |  Yield (86)

It has been a Maxim with me for Sixty years at least, Never to be afraid of a Book.
In Letter (26 May 1817) to Thomas Jefferson.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Book (413)  |  Maxim (19)  |  Year (963)

It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached from my childhood.
In Letter to Thomas Pennant (4 Aug 1767), in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Attention (196)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Companion (22)  |  Industry (159)  |  Information (173)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Misfortune (13)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Neighbor (14)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Pursuit Of Natural Knowledge (2)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Study (701)  |  Want (504)

It has been said repeatedly that one can never, try as he will, get around to the front of the universe. Man is destined to see only its far side, to realize nature only in retreat.
In 'The Innocent Fox,' The Star Thrower (1978), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Destined (42)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Realize (157)  |  See (1094)  |  Side (236)  |  Try (296)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

It has hitherto been a serious impediment to the progress of knowledge, that is in investigating the origin or causes of natural productions, recourse has generally been had to the examination, both by experiment and reasoning, of what might be rather than what is. The laws or processes of nature we have every reason to believe invariable. Their results from time to time vary, according to the combinations of influential circumstances; but the process remains the same. Like the poet or the painter, the chemist may, and no doubt often' does, create combinations which nature never produced; and the possibility of such and such processes giving rise to such and such results, is no proof whatever that they were ever in natural operation.
Considerations on Volcanoes (1825), 243.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Belief (615)  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Combination (150)  |  Create (245)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Examination (102)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Impediment (12)  |  Influence (231)  |  Invariability (6)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Origin (250)  |  Painter (30)  |  Poet (97)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Remain (355)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Serious (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Whatever (234)

It has never been man’s gift to make wildernesses. But he can make deserts, and has.
Last line of article, 'The War Between the Rough Riders and the Bird Watchers', Sierra Club Bulletin (May 1959). Quoted in Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work (2009), 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Desert (59)  |  Gift (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Wilderness (57)

It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin proved “that the subject was in the air,” or “that men's minds were prepared for it.” I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species.
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Species (435)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)

It is admitted by all that a finished or even a competent reasoner is not the work of nature alone; the experience of every day makes it evident that education develops faculties which would otherwise never have manifested their existence. It is, therefore, as necessary to learn to reason before we can expect to be able to reason, as it is to learn to swim or fence, in order to attain either of those arts. Now, something must be reasoned upon, it matters not much what it is, provided it can be reasoned upon with certainty. The properties of mind or matter, or the study of languages, mathematics, or natural history, may be chosen for this purpose. Now of all these, it is desirable to choose the one which admits of the reasoning being verified, that is, in which we can find out by other means, such as measurement and ocular demonstration of all sorts, whether the results are true or not. When the guiding property of the loadstone was first ascertained, and it was necessary to learn how to use this new discovery, and to find out how far it might be relied on, it would have been thought advisable to make many passages between ports that were well known before attempting a voyage of discovery. So it is with our reasoning faculties: it is desirable that their powers should be exerted upon objects of such a nature, that we can tell by other means whether the results which we obtain are true or false, and this before it is safe to trust entirely to reason. Now the mathematics are peculiarly well adapted for this purpose, on the following grounds:
1. Every term is distinctly explained, and has but one meaning, and it is rarely that two words are employed to mean the same thing.
2. The first principles are self-evident, and, though derived from observation, do not require more of it than has been made by children in general.
3. The demonstration is strictly logical, taking nothing for granted except self-evident first principles, resting nothing upon probability, and entirely independent of authority and opinion.
4. When the conclusion is obtained by reasoning, its truth or falsehood can be ascertained, in geometry by actual measurement, in algebra by common arithmetical calculation. This gives confidence, and is absolutely necessary, if, as was said before, reason is not to be the instructor, but the pupil.
5. There are no words whose meanings are so much alike that the ideas which they stand for may be confounded. Between the meaning of terms there is no distinction, except a total distinction, and all adjectives and adverbs expressing difference of degrees are avoided.
In On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1898), chap. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Actual (118)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adjective (3)  |  Admit (49)  |  Adverb (3)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Authority (99)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Common (447)  |  Competent (20)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Confound (21)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Derive (70)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Employ (115)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Evident (92)  |  Exert (40)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Faculty (76)  |  False (105)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Far (158)  |  Fence (11)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Grant (76)  |  Ground (222)  |  Guide (107)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Independent (74)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Logical (57)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meanings (5)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ocular (3)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Peculiarly (4)  |  Port (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Property (177)  |  Provide (79)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rely (12)  |  Require (229)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Safe (61)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Something (718)  |  Sort (50)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Study (701)  |  Swim (32)  |  Tell (344)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Total (95)  |  True (239)  |  Trust (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Verify (24)  |  Voyage (13)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

It is an old saying, abundantly justified, that where sciences meet there growth occurs. It is true moreover to say that in scientific borderlands not only are facts gathered that [are] often new in kind, but it is in these regions that wholly new concepts arise. It is my own faith that just as the older biology from its faithful studies of external forms provided a new concept in the doctrine of evolution, so the new biology is yet fated to furnish entirely new fundamental concepts of science, at which physics and chemistry when concerned with the non-living alone could never arrive.
'Biological Thought and Chemical Thought: A Plea for Unification', Linacre Lecture, Cambridge (6 May 1938), published in Lancet (1938),2, 1204.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arise (162)  |  Biology (232)  |  Borderland (6)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Gather (76)  |  Growth (200)  |  Kind (564)  |  Living (492)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Old (499)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wholly (88)

It is better to copulate than never.
In 'From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long', Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long (1973), 259.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)

It is certainly true that all physical phenomena are subject to strictly mathematical conditions, and mathematical processes are unassailable in themselves. The trouble arises from the data employed. Most phenomena are so highly complex that one can never be quite sure that he is dealing with all the factors until the experiment proves it. So that experiment is rather the criterion of mathematical conclusions and must lead the way.
In Matter, Ether, Motion (1894), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Data (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Factor (47)  |  Highly (16)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Process (439)  |  Prove (261)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Trouble (117)  |  True (239)  |  Unassailable (3)  |  Way (1214)

It is curious to reflect on how history repeats itself the world over. Why, I remember the same thing was done when I was a boy on the Mississippi River. There was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.
It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. He'll never get fat. I believe it is better to support schools than jails.
Address at a meeting of the Berkeley Lyceum, New York (23 Nov 1900). Mark Twain's Speeches (2006), 69-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Boy (100)  |  Build (211)  |  Close (77)  |  Closed (38)  |  Curious (95)  |  Discontinue (3)  |  Dog (70)  |  Education (423)  |  Expensive (10)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Fat (11)  |  Feed (31)  |  History (716)  |  Jail (4)  |  Old (499)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Public (100)  |  Remember (189)  |  River (140)  |  Save (126)  |  School (227)  |  Support (151)  |  Tail (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

It is for such inquiries the modern naturalist collects his materials; it is for this that he still wants to add to the apparently boundless treasures of our national museums, and will never rest satisfied as long as the native country, the geographical distribution, and the amount of variation of any living thing remains imperfectly known. He looks upon every species of animal and plant now living as the individual letters which go to make up one of the volumes of our earth’s history; and, as a few lost letters may make a sentence unintelligible, so the extinction of the numerous forms of life which the progress of cultivation invariably entails will necessarily render obscure this invaluable record of the past. It is, therefore, an important object, which governments and scientific institutions should immediately take steps to secure, that in all tropical countries colonised by Europeans the most perfect collections possible in every branch of natural history should be made and deposited in national museums, where they may be available for study and interpretation. If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations. They will charge us with having culpably allowed the destruction of some of those records of Creation which we had it in our power to preserve; and while professing to regard every living thing as the direct handiwork and best evidence of a Creator, yet, with a strange inconsistency, seeing many of them perish irrecoverably from the face of the earth, uncared for and unknown.
In 'On the Physical Geography of the Malay Archipelago', Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1863), 33, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Age (509)  |  Allowed (3)  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Available (80)  |  Back (395)  |  Best (467)  |  Blind (98)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Branch (155)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Charge (63)  |  Collect (19)  |  Collection (68)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Country (269)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entail (4)  |  European (5)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Face (214)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Geographical (6)  |  Government (116)  |  Handiwork (6)  |  Higher (37)  |  History (716)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Imperfectly (2)  |  Important (229)  |  Inconsistency (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Institution (73)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Invaluable (11)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Known (453)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Lost (34)  |  Made (14)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Museum (40)  |  National (29)  |  Native (41)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Object (438)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perish (56)  |  Person (366)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Professing (2)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Record (161)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Rest (287)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Secure (23)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Species (435)  |  Step (234)  |  Still (614)  |  Strange (160)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Tropical (9)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Variation (93)  |  Volume (25)  |  Want (504)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Will (2350)

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Speech, 'The Strenuous Life' (10 Apr 1899), as governor of New York, before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, Illinois. In The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (1926), Vol. 13, Chap.1, 320. Also excerpted in 'Practical Talks by Practical Men: The Strenuous Life', Illustrated World (1904), 2, 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Hard (246)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Try (296)  |  Worse (25)

It is imperative in the design process to have a full and complete understanding of how failure is being obviated in order to achieve success. Without fully appreciating how close to failing a new design is, its own designer may not fully understand how and why a design works. A new design may prove to be successful because it has a sufficiently large factor of safety (which, of course, has often rightly been called a “factor of ignorance”), but a design's true factor of safety can never be known if the ultimate failure mode is unknown. Thus the design that succeeds (ie, does not fail) can actually provide less reliable information about how or how not to extrapolate from that design than one that fails. It is this observation that has long motivated reflective designers to study failures even more assiduously than successes.
In Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering (1994), 31. books.google.comHenry Petroski - 1994
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Complete (209)  |  Course (413)  |  Design (203)  |  Extrapolation (6)  |  Factor (47)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Imperative (16)  |  Information (173)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Long (778)  |  Mode (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Motivated (14)  |  Motivation (28)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Process (439)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Reliability (18)  |  Safety (58)  |  Study (701)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Sufficiency (16)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)

It is impossible to answer your question briefly; and I am not sure that I could do so, even if I wrote at some length. But I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide.
[Replying to query about his religious views]
Letter to a Dutch student (2 Apr 1873), in Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1896), 276.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Argument (145)  |  Briefly (5)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chief (99)  |  Conceiving (3)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Decide (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Existence (481)  |  God (776)  |  Grand (29)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Query (4)  |  Question (649)  |  Religious (134)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Self (268)  |  Through (846)  |  Universe (900)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Wondrous (22)

It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined.
An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865, translation 1927, 1957), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Answer (389)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conceiving (3)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Definition (238)  |  Devise (16)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Invitation (12)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Preconceive (3)  |  Principle (530)  |  Putting (2)  |  Question (649)  |  View (496)

It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.
Novum Organum (1620), Part 1, Sec. 1, Aphorism 6. In The Works of Franics Bacon (1815), Vol. 4, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Effect (414)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Madness (33)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Perform (123)  |  Thing (1914)

It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision.
In 'The Meaning of Causality in Physics' (1953), collected in Max Planck and Frank Gaynor (trans.), Scientific Autobiography: and Other Papers (1949, 2007), 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precision (72)  |  Predict (86)  |  Probability (135)  |  Unlimited (24)

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Late (119)

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better that knowledge.
Note: Although attributed as his viewpoint to Enrico Fermi, it is probably not a direct quote by him.
Not a direct quotation by Enrico Fermi, but his viewpoint, as described by his wife, Laura Fermi, in Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi (1954), 244. See it in context elsewhere on this page, in a longer quote that begins: “Some men said an atomic bomb…”
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Direct (228)  |  Forward (104)  |  Good (906)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Quote (46)  |  Stop (89)  |  Try (296)  |  Viewpoint (13)

It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours... in order that the creations of our minds shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
Address to students of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California (16 Feb 1931). In New York Times (17 Feb 1931), p. 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Chief (99)  |  Concern (239)  |  Creation (350)  |  Curse (20)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enough (341)  |  Equation (138)  |  Fate (76)  |  Forget (125)  |  Form (976)  |  Himself (461)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invention (400)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Understand (648)  |  Work (1402)

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again; the never-satisfied man is so strange if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully,but in order to begin another. I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms for others.
Letter to Farkas Wolfgang Bolyai (2 Sep 1808). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Begin (275)  |  Biography (254)  |  Completed (30)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Conqueror (8)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Feel (371)  |  Grant (76)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learning (291)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possession (68)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Strange (160)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Turn (454)  |  World (1850)

It is not only a decided preference for synthesis and a complete denial of general methods which characterizes the ancient mathematics as against our newer Science [modern mathematics]: besides this extemal formal difference there is another real, more deeply seated, contrast, which arises from the different attitudes which the two assumed relative to the use of the concept of variability. For while the ancients, on account of considerations which had been transmitted to them from the Philosophie school of the Eleatics, never employed the concept of motion, the spatial expression for variability, in their rigorous system, and made incidental use of it only in the treatment of phonoromically generated curves, modern geometry dates from the instant that Descartes left the purely algebraic treatment of equations and proceeded to investigate the variations which an algebraic expression undergoes when one of its variables assumes a continuous succession of values.
In 'Untersuchungen über die unendlich oft oszillierenden und unstetigen Functionen', Ostwald’s Klassiker der exacten Wissenschaften (1905), No. 153, 44-45. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 115. From the original German, “Nicht allein entschiedene Vorliebe für die Synthese und gänzliche Verleugnung allgemeiner Methoden charakterisiert die antike Mathematik gegenüber unserer neueren Wissenschaft; es gibt neben diesem mehr äußeren, formalen, noch einen tiefliegenden realen Gegensatz, welcher aus der verschiedenen Stellung entspringt, in welche sich beide zu der wissenschaftlichen Verwendung des Begriffes der Veränderlichkeit gesetzt haben. Denn während die Alten den Begriff der Bewegung, des räumlichen Ausdruckes der Veränderlichkeit, aus Bedenken, die aus der philosophischen Schule der Eleaten auf sie übergegangen waren, in ihrem strengen Systeme niemals und auch in der Behandlung phoronomisch erzeugter Kurven nur vorübergehend verwenden, so datiert die neuere Mathematik von dem Augenblicke, als Descartes von der rein algebraischen Behandlung der Gleichungen dazu fortschritt, die Größenveränderungen zu untersuchen, welche ein algebraischer Ausdruck erleidet, indem eine in ihm allgemein bezeichnete Größe eine stetige Folge von Werten durchläuft.”
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Complete (209)  |  Concept (242)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Curve (49)  |  Denial (20)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Employ (115)  |  Equation (138)  |  Expression (181)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Instant (46)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Preference (28)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Purely (111)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  School (227)  |  Succession (80)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  System (545)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Variable (37)  |  Variation (93)

It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power; we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible, and which are not. …
Quoted in Lily Splane, Quantum Consciousness (2004), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Awkward (11)  |  Enough (341)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Permissible (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Smart (33)

It is true that a mathematician who is not somewhat of a poet, will never be a perfect mathematician.
From letter to Sofia Kovalevskaya (27 Aug 1883), as quoted by Mittag-Leffler in Compte Rendu du Deuxième Congrès International des Mathématiciens Tenu à Paris du 6 au 12 Août 1900 (1902), 149. In Robert Edoward Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath's Quotation-book (1914), 121. From the original German, “Es ist wahr, ein Mathematiker, der nicht etwas Poet ist, wird nimmer ein vollkommener Mathematiker sein.” Also seen translated as, “No mathematician can be a complete mathematician unless he is also something of a poet”, in, for example, E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics (1937), 432.
Science quotes on:  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Poet (97)  |  Will (2350)

It is unlikely that we will ever see a star being born. Stars are like animals in the wild. We may see the very young, but never their actual birth, which is a veiled and secret event. Stars are born inside thick clouds of dust and gas in the spiral arms of the galaxy, so thick that visible light cannot penetrate them.
Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (1985), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Being (1276)  |  Birth (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Dust (68)  |  Event (222)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Gas (89)  |  Light (635)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thick (6)  |  Veil (27)  |  Visible (87)  |  Visible Light (2)  |  Wild (96)  |  Will (2350)  |  Young (253)

It must never be forgotten that education is not a process of packing articles in a trunk. Such a simile is entirely inapplicable. It is, of course, a process completely of its own peculiar genus. Its nearest analogue is the assimilation of food by a living organism: and we all know how necessary to health is palatable food under suitable conditions.
In 'The Rhythmic Claims of Freedom and Discipline', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Analog (4)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Completely (137)  |  Condition (362)  |  Course (413)  |  Education (423)  |  Food (213)  |  Forgetting (13)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Genius (301)  |  Genus (27)  |  Health (210)  |  Inapplicable (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Organism (231)  |  Packing (3)  |  Palatable (3)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Process (439)  |  Simile (8)  |  Suitability (11)  |  Trunk (23)

It never occurred to me that there was going to be any stumbling block. Not that I had the answer, but [I had] the joy of going at it. When you have that joy, you do the right experiments. You let the material tell you where to go, and it tells you at every step what the next has to be because you're integrating with an overall brand new pattern in mind.
When asked how she could have worked for two years without knowing the outcome.
Quoted in Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (1984), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Joy (117)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Material (366)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Overall (10)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  Step (234)  |  Stumbling Block (6)  |  Tell (344)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

It seems probable to me that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the end for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles, being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even so very hard as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God had made one in the first creation.
From Opticks (1704, 2nd ed., 1718), 375-376.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Break (109)  |  Compound (117)  |  Creation (350)  |  Divide (77)  |  End (603)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Hard (246)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Power (771)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)

It seems very strange … that in the course of the world’s history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. … The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood.
In Report, and Special Report, from the Select Committee on the Daylight Saving Bill: Minutes of Evidence (1908), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Adopt (22)  |  Better (493)  |  British (42)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Course (413)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Daylight Saving Time (10)  |  Extra (7)  |  Generation (256)  |  History (716)  |  Hour (192)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Next (238)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Seem (150)  |  Strange (160)  |  World (1850)

It was eerie. I saw myself in that machine. I never thought my work would come to this.
Upon seeing a distorted image of his face, reflected on the inside cylindrical surface of the bore while inside an MRI (magnetic-resonance-imaging) machine—a device made possible by his early physical researches on nuclear magnetic resonance (1938).
Quoted from conversation with the author, John S. Rigden, in Rabi, Scientist and Citizen (2000), xxii. Rabi was recalling having an MRI, in late 1987, a few months before his death. He had been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1944, for his discovery of the magnetic resonance method.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Device (71)  |  Distort (22)  |  Early (196)  |  Face (214)  |  Image (97)  |  Machine (271)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Myself (211)  |  NMR (2)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Research (753)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thought (995)  |  Work (1402)

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
From Letter (24 Mar 1954) in Einstein archives. Quoted by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979, 2013), 43. Dukas was Einstein’s personal secretary for 28 years, so she knew his philosophy well.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Agnostic (10)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Course (413)  |  Deny (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Express (192)  |  God (776)  |  Lie (370)  |  Personal (75)  |  Read (308)  |  Religious (134)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Something (718)  |  Structure (365)  |  Unbounded (5)  |  World (1850)

It will never get well if you pick it.
Anonymous
American saying
Science quotes on:  |  Healing (28)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Will (2350)

It would be a very wonderful, but not an absolutely incredible result, that volcanic action has never been more violent on the whole than during the last two or three centuries; but it is as certain that there is now less volcanic energy in the whole earth than there was a thousand years ago, as it is that there is less gunpowder in a ‘Monitor’ after she has been seen to discharge shot and shell, whether at a nearly equable rate or not, for five hours without receiving fresh supplies, than there was at the beginning of the action.
In 'On the Secular Cooling of the Earth', Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1864), 23, 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Certain (557)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Hour (192)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Last (425)  |  Monitor (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Result (700)  |  Shell (69)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Year (963)

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 6. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Contradictory (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Self (268)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Unsound (5)

It would be foolish to give credit to Euclid for pangeometrical conceptions; the idea of geometry deifferent from the common-sense one never occurred to his mind. Yet, when he stated the fifth postulate, he stood at the parting of the ways. His subconscious prescience is astounding. There is nothing comperable to it in the whole history of science.
Ancient Science And Modern Civilization (1954, 1959), 28. In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 130.
Science quotes on:  |  Astounding (9)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Conception (160)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Geometry (271)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Prescience (2)  |  Sense (785)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

It would be the height of folly—and self-defeating—to think that things never heretofore done can be accomplished without means never heretofore tried.
In Novum Organum (1620).
Science quotes on:  |  Folly (44)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Self (268)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)

It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization. But when asking myself what religion is I cannot think of the answer so easily. And even after finding an answer which may satisfy me at this particular moment, I still remain convinced that I can never under any circumstances bring together, even to a slight extent, the thoughts of all those who have given this question serious consideration.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Association (49)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Boldly (5)  |  Bring (95)  |  Century (319)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easily (36)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extent (142)  |  Find (1014)  |  Give (208)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moment (260)  |  Myself (211)  |  Old (499)  |  Particular (80)  |  Perceptible (7)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possible (560)  |  Posterior (7)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remain (355)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Serious (98)  |  Slight (32)  |  Still (614)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)  |  Understand (648)  |  World (1850)

It’s important natural history isn’t seen as something that is “out there”, which you have to travel to. It’s right there in your garden. Public awareness of the natural history of the world as a whole has never been as great. But it’s important to know about species close to home.
As reported by Adam Lusher in 'Sir David Attenborough', Daily Mail (28 Feb 2014).
Science quotes on:  |  Awareness (42)  |  Close (77)  |  Garden (64)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Important (229)  |  Know (1538)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Public (100)  |  Right (473)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Travel (125)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

It’s never too late for a happy childhood.
In Still Life with Woodpecker (1980).
Science quotes on:  |  Childhood (42)  |  Happy (108)  |  Late (119)

It’s not the critic who counts; not the man which points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again … who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
In Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Inside: A Public and Private Life (2005), 356.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Arena (4)  |  Belong (168)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Count (107)  |  Credit (24)  |  Critic (21)  |  Dare (55)  |  Daring (17)  |  Deed (34)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Dust (68)  |  End (603)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Error (339)  |  Face (214)  |  Fail (191)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marred (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Short (200)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spend (97)  |  Strive (53)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Timidity (5)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Valiantly (2)  |  Victory (40)  |  Worst (57)

It’s very good jam, said the Queen.
“Well, I don’t want any to-day, at any rate.”
“You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” the Queen said.
“The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam to-day.”
“It must come sometimes to “jam to-day,” Alice objected.
“No it can’t,” said the Queen.
“It’s jam every other day; to-day isn’t any other day, you know.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing.”
From Through the Looking Glass. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland And, Through the Looking Glass (1898), 149.
Science quotes on:  |  Alice (8)  |  Confused (13)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  Good (906)  |  Jam (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Queen (14)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sometime (4)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Understand (648)  |  Want (504)  |  Yesterday (37)

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Bob, why are you resisting me?” I said, “I’m not resisting You!” He said, “You gonna follow Me?” I said, “I’ve never thought about that before!” He said, “When you’re not following Me, you’re resisting Me.”
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 156
Science quotes on:  |  Bob (2)  |  Follow (389)  |  Jesus (9)  |  Resist (15)  |  Say (989)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Tap (10)  |  Thought (995)  |  Why (491)

John [H.] Van Vleck, who was a leading young theoretical physicist when I was also a leading young theoretical physicist, said to me one day, “I never have made a contribution to physics that I didn’t get by fiddling with the equations,” and I said, “I’ve never made a contribution that I didn’t get by just having a new idea. Then I would fiddle with the equations to help support the new idea.” Van Vleck was essentially a mathematical physicist, you might say, and I was essentially a person of ideas. I don’t think I’m primarily mathematical. … I have a great curiosity about the nature of the world as a whole, and most of my ideas are qualitative rather than quantitative.
Interview with George B. Kauffman and Laurie M. Kauffman, in 'Linus Pauling: Reflections', American Scientist (Nov-Dec 1994), 82, No. 6, 523.
Science quotes on:  |  Contribution (93)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Equation (138)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mathematical Physics (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Person (366)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Say (989)  |  Support (151)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Think (1122)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)

Just as it will never be successfully challenged that the French language, progressively developing and growing more perfect day by day, has the better claim to serve as a developed court and world language, so no one will venture to estimate lightly the debt which the world owes to mathematicians, in that they treat in their own language matters of the utmost importance, and govern, determine and decide whatever is subject, using the word in the highest sense, to number and measurement.
In 'Sprüche in Prosa', Natur, III, 868.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Claim (154)  |  Court (35)  |  Debt (15)  |  Decide (50)  |  Determine (152)  |  Develop (278)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  French (21)  |  Govern (66)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  High (370)  |  Importance (299)  |  Language (308)  |  Lightly (2)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measurement (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Owe (71)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serve (64)  |  Subject (543)  |  Successful (134)  |  Treat (38)  |  Utmost (12)  |  Venture (19)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Just as the musician is able to form an acoustic image of a composition which he has never heard played by merely looking at its score, so the equation of a curve, which he has never seen, furnishes the mathematician with a complete picture of its course. Yea, even more: as the score frequently reveals to the musician niceties which would escape his ear because of the complication and rapid change of the auditory impressions, so the insight which the mathematician gains from the equation of a curve is much deeper than that which is brought about by a mere inspection of the curve.
In Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereiningung, 13, 864. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 190
Science quotes on:  |  Acoustic (3)  |  Auditory (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complication (30)  |  Composition (86)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Ear (69)  |  Equation (138)  |  Escape (85)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Gain (146)  |  Hear (144)  |  Image (97)  |  Impression (118)  |  Insight (107)  |  Inspection (7)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Musician (23)  |  Nice (15)  |  Picture (148)  |  Play (116)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Score (8)

Just now nuclear physicists are writing a great deal about hypothetical particles called neutrinos supposed to account for certain peculiar facts observed in β-ray disintegration. We can perhaps best describe the neutrinos as little bits of spin-energy that have got detached. I am not much impressed by the neutrino theory. In an ordinary way I might say that I do not believe in neutrinos… But I have to reflect that a physicist may be an artist, and you never know where you are with artists. My old-fashioned kind of disbelief in neutrinos is scarcely enough. Dare I say that experimental physicists will not have sufficient ingenuity to make neutrinos? Whatever I may think, I am not going to be lured into a wager against the skill of experimenters under the impression that it is a wager against the truth of a theory. If they succeed in making neutrinos, perhaps even in developing industrial applications of them, I suppose I shall have to believe—though I may feel that they have not been playing quite fair.
From Tarner Lecture, 'Discovery or Manufacture?' (1938), in The Philosophy of Physical Science (1939, 2012), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Application (257)  |  Artist (97)  |  Best (467)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Dare (55)  |  Deal (192)  |  Describe (132)  |  Disbelief (4)  |  Disintegration (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feel (371)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Impression (118)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Neutrino (11)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Physicist (5)  |  Observed (149)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Particle (200)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Playing (42)  |  Ray (115)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Skill (116)  |  Spin (26)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)

Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Down (455)  |  Research (753)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Something (718)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Will (2350)

Kirchhoff’s whole tendency, and its true counterpart, the form of his presentation, was different [from Maxwell’s “dramatic bulk”]. … He is characterized by the extreme precision of his hypotheses, minute execution, a quiet rather than epic development with utmost rigor, never concealing a difficulty, always dispelling the faintest obscurity. … he resembled Beethoven, the thinker in tones. — He who doubts that mathematical compositions can be beautiful, let him read his memoir on Absorption and Emission … or the chapter of his mechanics devoted to Hydrodynamics.
In Ceremonial Speech (15 Nov 1887) celebrating the 301st anniversary of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz. Published as Gustav Robert Kirchhoff: Festrede zur Feier des 301. Gründungstages der Karl-Franzens-Universität zu Graz (1888), 30, as translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 187. From the original German, “Kirchhoff … seine ganze Richtung war eine andere, und ebenso auch deren treues Abbild, die Form seiner Darstellung. … Ihn charakterisirt die schärfste Präcisirung der Hypothesen, feine Durchfeilung, ruhige mehr epische Fortentwicklung mit eiserner Consequenz ohne Verschweigung irgend einer Schwierigkeit, unter Aufhellung des leisesten Schattens. … er glich dem Denker in Tönen: Beethoven. – Wer in Zweifel zieht, dass mathematische Werke künstlerisch schön sein können, der lese seine Abhandlung über Absorption und Emission oder den der Hydrodynamik gewidmeten Abschnitt seiner Mechanik.” The memoir reference is Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1882), 571-598.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption (13)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beethoven_Ludwig (8)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Composition (86)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Counterpart (11)  |  Development (441)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dispel (5)  |  Dispelling (4)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Emission (20)  |  Epic (12)  |  Execution (25)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Faint (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Hydrodynamics (5)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (4)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Memoir (13)  |  Minute (129)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Precision (72)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Read (308)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Tone (22)  |  Utmost (12)  |  Whole (756)

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no delay, no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Delay (21)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Know (1538)  |  Moment (260)  |  Put Off (2)  |  Seize (18)  |  Snatch (14)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  True (239)  |  Value (393)

Knowledge and ability must be combined with ambition as well as with a sense of honesty and a severe conscience. Every analyst occasionally has doubts about the accuracy of his results, and also there are times when he knows his results to be incorrect. Sometimes a few drops of the solution were spilt, or some other slight mistake made. In these cases it requires a strong conscience to repeat the analysis and to make a rough estimate of the loss or apply a correction. Anyone not having sufficient will-power to do this is unsuited to analysis no matter how great his technical ability or knowledge. A chemist who would not take an oath guaranteeing the authenticity, as well as the accuracy of his work, should never publish his results, for if he were to do so, then the result would be detrimental not only to himself, but to the whole of science.
Anleitung zur Quantitativen Analyse (1847), preface. F. Szabadvary, History of Analytical Chemistry (1966), trans. Gyula Svehla, 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apply (170)  |  Authenticity (5)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Correction (42)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Drop (77)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Loss (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Must (1525)  |  Oath (10)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Publication (102)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solution (282)  |  Strong (182)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Knowledge is never the exclusive possession of any favoured race; the whole world is inter-dependent and a constant stream of thought had through ages enriched the common heritage of mankind.
From 'Sir J.C. Bose’s Address', Benares Hindu University 1905-1935 (1936), 423-424.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Common (447)  |  Constant (148)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Favor (69)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Inter (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Possession (68)  |  Race (278)  |  Stream (83)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Of course, it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore all around it: one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought.
Address (22 May 1914) to the graduating class of the Friends’ School, Washington, D.C. Printed in 'Discovery and Invention', The National Geographic Magazine (1914), 25, 650.
Science quotes on:  |  Beaten Track (4)  |  Certain (557)  |  Course (413)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dive (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Little (717)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Track (42)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wood (97)  |  Woods (15)  |  Worth (172)

Leibniz never married; he had considered it at the age of fifty; but the person he had in mind asked for time to reflect. This gave Leibniz time to reflect, too, and so he never married.
From the original French, “Leibnitz ne s'était point marié ; il y avait pensé à l'âge de cinquante ans; mais la personne qu’il avait en vue voulut avoir le temps de faire ses réflexions. Cela donna à Leibnitz le loisir de faire aussi les siennes, et il ne se maria point.” In 'Éloge de Leibniz' (1768), in Éloges de Fontenelle (1883), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ask (420)  |  Consider (428)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Marry (11)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Person (366)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Time (1911)

Let me tell you how at one time the famous mathematician Euclid became a physician. It was during a vacation, which I spent in Prague as I most always did, when I was attacked by an illness never before experienced, which manifested itself in chilliness and painful weariness of the whole body. In order to ease my condition I took up Euclid’s Elements and read for the first time his doctrine of ratio, which I found treated there in a manner entirely new to me. The ingenuity displayed in Euclid’s presentation filled me with such vivid pleasure, that forthwith I felt as well as ever.
Selbstbiographie (1875), 20. In Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath's Quotation-book (1914), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Attack (86)  |  Biography (254)  |  Body (557)  |  Chill (10)  |  Condition (362)  |  Display (59)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Element (322)  |  Euclid (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Illness (35)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Pain (144)  |  Physician (284)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Read (308)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Spent (85)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vacation (4)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Weariness (6)  |  Whole (756)

Let the sun never set or rise on a small bowel obstruction.
Adage expressing urgency for early operation to avoid possible fatality.
Anonymous
Summary of classic advice by Georg Friedrich Louis Stromeyer (1804-76) for a stangulated hernia. In Joe J. Tjandra et al., Textbook of Surgery (2006), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Adage (4)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Bowel (17)  |  Early (196)  |  Hernia (2)  |  Intestine (16)  |  Operation (221)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rise (169)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Urgency (13)

Let the young know they will never find a more interesting, more instructive book than the patient himself.
Attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Find (1014)  |  Himself (461)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Will (2350)  |  Young (253)

Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive.
From Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841), Vol. 3, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Contempt (20)  |  Error (339)  |  Fall (243)  |  Folly (44)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Pride (84)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Study (701)  |  Superior (88)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)

Let us now recapitulate all that has been said, and let us conclude that by hermetically sealing the vials, one is not always sure to prevent the birth of the animals in the infusions, boiled or done at room temperature, if the air inside has not felt the ravages of fire. If, on the contrary, this air has been powerfully heated, it will never allow the animals to be born, unless new air penetrates from outside into the vials. This means that it is indispensable for the production of the animals that they be provided with air which has not felt the action of fire. And as it would not be easy to prove that there were no tiny eggs disseminated and floating in the volume of air that the vials contain, it seems to me that suspicion regarding these eggs continues, and that trial by fire has not entirely done away with fears of their existence in the infusions. The partisans of the theory of ovaries will always have these fears and will not easily suffer anyone's undertaking to demolish them.
Nouvelles Recherches sur les Découvertes Microscopiques, et la Génération des Corps Organisés (1769), 134-5. Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, ed. Keith R. Benson and trans. Robert Ellrich (1997), 510-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boil (24)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Demolish (8)  |  Demolition (4)  |  Dissemination (3)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Egg (71)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fire (203)  |  Float (31)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hermetic (2)  |  Infusion (4)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  New (1273)  |  Outside (141)  |  Ovary (2)  |  Partisan (5)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Pentration (2)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Production (190)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Provision (17)  |  Ravage (7)  |  Recapitulation (6)  |  Seal (19)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Trial (59)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Vial (4)  |  Will (2350)

Let us only imagine that birds had studied their own development and that it was they in turn who investigated the structure of the adult mammal and of man. Wouldn’t their physiological textbooks teach the following? “Those four and two-legged animals bear many resemblances to embryos, for their cranial bones are separated, and they have no beak, just as we do in the first live or six days of incubation; their extremities are all very much alike, as ours are for about the same period; there is not a single true feather on their body, rather only thin feather-shafts, so that we, as fledglings in the nest, are more advanced than they shall ever be … And these mammals that cannot find their own food for such a long time after their birth, that can never rise freely from the earth, want to consider themselves more highly organized than we?”
Über Entwicklungsgeschichte der Thiere: Beobachtung und Reflexion (1828), 203. Trans. Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Animal (651)  |  Bear (162)  |  Bird (163)  |  Birth (154)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Consider (428)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Food (213)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Incubation (3)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nest (26)  |  Period (200)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Rise (169)  |  Single (365)  |  Structure (365)  |  Teach (299)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Want (504)

Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aint (4)  |  Change (639)  |  Dog (70)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Scenery (9)  |  Team (17)

Like all things of the mind, science is a brittle thing: it becomes absurd when you look at it too closely. It is designed for few at a time, not as a mass profession. But now we have megascience: an immense apparatus discharging in a minute more bursts of knowledge than humanity is able to assimilate in a lifetime. Each of us has two eyes, two ears, and, I hope, one brain. We cannot even listen to two symphonies at the same time. How do we get out of the horrible cacophony that assails our minds day and night? We have to learn, as others did, that if science is a machine to make more science, a machine to grind out so-called facts of nature, not all facts are equally worth knowing. Students, in other words, will have to learn to forget most of what they have learned. This process of forgetting must begin after each exam, but never before. The Ph.D. is essentially a license to start unlearning.
Voices In the Labyrinth: Nature, Man, and Science (1979), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Brain (281)  |  Burst (41)  |  Call (781)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ear (69)  |  Education (423)  |  Equally (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Forget (125)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Immense (89)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Listen (81)  |  Look (584)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  PhD (10)  |  Process (439)  |  Profession (108)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Start (237)  |  Student (317)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Worth (172)

Lise Meitner: a physicist who never lost her humanity.
Tombstone inscription, St. James' Church, Bramley, Hampshire. In Ruth Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (1996), 380.
Science quotes on:  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Lose (165)  |  Physicist (270)

Living is like working out a long addition sum, and if you make a mistake in the first two totals you will never find the right answer. It means involving oneself in a complicated chain of circumstances.
In The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Chain (51)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Correct (95)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Right (473)  |  Sum (103)  |  Total (95)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Lo! the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.
Essay on Man. Epistle I. Line 99. In Alexander Pope, Maynard Mack (Ed.), An Essay on Man (reprint of the Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, 1982), 27. by Alexander Pope, Maynard Mack - Poetry - 1982 - 186 pages
Science quotes on:  |  Cloud (111)  |  God (776)  |  Hear (144)  |  Indian (32)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Poor (139)  |  See (1094)  |  Solar (8)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stray (7)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)

Long before I ever saw the desert I was aware of the mystical overtones which the observation of nature made audible to me. But I have never been more frequently or more vividly aware of them than in connection with the desert phenomena.
The Voice of the Desert, a Naturalist’s Interpretation (1955, 1975), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Audible (4)  |  Connection (171)  |  Desert (59)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Overtone (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Vividly (11)

Look at those animals and remember the greatest scientists in the world have never discovered how to make grass into milk.
As quoted in Dorothy Caruso, Enrico Caruso: His Life and Death (1963), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Grass (49)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Look (584)  |  Milk (23)  |  Remember (189)  |  Scientist (881)  |  World (1850)

Lost time is never found again.
No. 332, Poor Richard’s Almanack (Jan 1748). Collected in Poor Richard's Almanack (1914), 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  Lost (34)  |  Time (1911)

Magnetism, galvanism, electricity, are “one form of many names.” Without magnetism we should never have discovered America; to which we are indebted for nothing but evil; diseases in the worst forms that can afflict humanity, and slavery in the worst form in which slavery can exist. The Old World had the sugar-cane and the cotton-plant, though it did not so misuse them.
Written for fictional character, the Rev. Dr. Opimian, in Gryll Grange (1861), collected in Sir Henry Cole (ed.) The Works of Thomas Love Peacock(1875), Vol. 2, 382. [Hans Øersted discovered electromagnetism in 1820. Presumably the next reference to magnetism refers to a compass needle for navigation. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Afflict (4)  |  America (143)  |  Cotton (8)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disease (340)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Evil (122)  |  Exist (458)  |  Form (976)  |  Galvanism (9)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Indebted (8)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Misuse (12)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Old World (9)  |  Plant (320)  |  Slavery (13)  |  Sugar (26)  |  World (1850)  |  Worst (57)

Man has never been a particularly modest or self-deprecatory animal, and physical theory bears witness to this no less than many other important activities. The idea that thought is the measure of all things, that there is such a thing as utter logical rigor, that conclusions can be drawn endowed with an inescapable necessity, that mathematics has an absolute validity and controls experience—these are not the ideas of a modest animal. Not only do our theories betray these somewhat bumptious traits of self-appreciation, but especially obvious through them all is the thread of incorrigible optimism so characteristic of human beings.
In The Nature of Physical Theory (1936), 135-136.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Activity (218)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Betray (8)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Control (182)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endow (17)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Experience (494)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Inescapable (7)  |  Logic (311)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Modest (19)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Self (268)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thread (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Trait (23)  |  Utter (8)  |  Validity (50)  |  Witness (57)

Man studied birds for centuries, trying to learn how to make a machine to fly like them. He never did do the trick; his final success came when he broke away entirely and tried new methods.
Published under the name Don A. Stuart, 'Who Goes There?', Astounding Stories (Aug 1938). In Robert Silverberg, Ben Bova and Science Fiction Writers of America, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (1973), Vol. 2, 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Do (1905)  |  Final (121)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Learn (672)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Success (327)  |  Trick (36)  |  Trying (144)

Man, some modern philosophers tell us, is alienated from his world: he is a stranger and afraid in a world he never made. Perhaps he is; yet so are animals, and even plants. They too were born, long ago, into a physico-chemical world, a world they never made.
'A Realist View of Logic Physics', in Wolfgang Yourgrau, et al., Physics, Logic, and History: based on the First International Colloquium held at the University of Denver, May 16-20, 1966 (1970), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Alienate (3)  |  Animal (651)  |  Birth (154)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Plant (320)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Tell (344)  |  World (1850)

Man’s mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dimension (64)  |  Idea (881)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Original (61)  |  Regain (2)  |  Stretch (39)

Mankind never gains anything without cost. There never has been a bloodless victory over nature.
From newspaper interview, as few weeks after the funeral of cosmonaut Komarov. As quoted in Space World (1974), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Cost (94)  |  Gain (146)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Victory (40)

Many Americans are trying to conserve energy as never before—they're now burning their morning toast on only one side.
Anonymous
In E.C. McKenzie, 14,000 Quips and Quotes for Speakers, Writers, Editors, Preachers, and Teachers (1990), 156.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Energy (373)  |  Morning (98)  |  Side (236)  |  Toast (8)  |  Trying (144)

Many who have never had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confound it with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science. In reality, however, it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination.
In a letter to Madame Schabelskoy, quoted in Sónya Kovalévsky: Her Recollections of Childhood, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood (1895), 316.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Arid (6)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Confound (21)  |  Consider (428)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Reality (274)  |  Require (229)

Marx never did a day’s work in his life, and knew as much about the proletariat as I do about chorus girls.
In Before the Sabbath (1979), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Chorus (6)  |  Do (1905)  |  Girl (38)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Proletariat (2)  |  Work (1402)

Mathematical discoveries, small or great … are never born of spontaneous generation. They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious.
As given, without citation, in Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics (1937), 548.
Science quotes on:  |  Born (37)  |  Both (496)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Preliminary (6)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Seed (97)  |  Small (489)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Subconscious (4)

Mathematical research, with all its wealth of hidden treasure, is all too apt to yield nothing to our research: for it is haunted by certain ignes fatui—delusive phantoms, that float before us, and seem so fair, and are all but in our grasp, so nearly that it never seems to need more than one step further, and the prize shall be ours! Alas for him who has been turned aside from real research by one of these spectres—who has found a music in its mocking laughter—and who wastes his life and energy on the desperate chase!
Written without pseudonym as Charles L. Dodgson, in Introduction to A New Theory of Parallels (1888, 1890), xvi. Note: Ignes fatui, the plural of ignes fatuus (foolish fire), refers to a will-o'-the-wisp: something deceptive or deluding.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Chase (14)  |  Delusion (26)  |  Desperate (5)  |  Energy (373)  |  Float (31)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mocking (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Phantom (9)  |  Prize (13)  |  Research (753)  |  Spectre (3)  |  Step (234)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Turn (454)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Yield (86)

Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.
As quoted in G. Simmons Calculus Gems (1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Discover (571)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  In Vain (12)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Prime Number (5)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Try (296)  |  Vain (86)  |  Will (2350)

Mathematics … certainly would never have come into existence if mankind had known from the beginning that in all nature there is no perfectly straight line, no true circle, no standard of measurement.
From 'Of the First and Last Things', All Too Human: A Book For Free Spirits (1878, 1908), Part 1, section 11, 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Circle (117)  |  Existence (481)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Line (100)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Standard (64)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  True (239)

Mathematics had never had more than a secondary interest for him [her husband, George Boole]; and even logic he cared for chiefly as a means of clearing the ground of doctrines imagined to be proved, by showing that the evidence on which they were supposed to give rest had no tendency to prove them. But he had been endeavoring to give a more active and positive help than this to the cause of what he deemed pure religion.
In Eleanor Meredith Cobham, Mary Everest Boole: Collected Works (1931), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  George Boole (12)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Ground (222)  |  Interest (416)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Positive (98)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Pure (299)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rest (287)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Tendency (110)

Mathematics is a logical method … Mathematical propositions express no thoughts. In life it is never a mathematical proposition which we need, but we use mathematical propositions only in order to infer from propositions which do not belong to mathematics to others which equally do not belong to mathematics.
In Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1922), 169 (statements 6.2-6.211).
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Do (1905)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equally (129)  |  Express (192)  |  Infer (12)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Need (320)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)

Mathematics may be defined as the the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, not whether what we are saying is true.
In 'Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics', International Monthly (1901), 4, 84. This sentence is part of a longer quote that begins, “Pure mathematics consists entirely…”, on the Bertrand Russell Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Define (53)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Say (989)  |  Subject (543)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  True (239)

Mathematics, among all school subjects, is especially adapted to further clearness, definite brevity and precision in expression, although it offers no exercise in flights of rhetoric. This is due in the first place to the logical rigour with which it develops thought, avoiding every departure from the shortest, most direct way, never allowing empty phrases to enter. Other subjects excel in the development of expression in other respects: translation from foreign languages into the mother tongue gives exercise in finding the proper word for the given foreign word and gives knowledge of laws of syntax, the study of poetry and prose furnish fit patterns for connected presentation and elegant form of expression, composition is to exercise the pupil in a like presentation of his own or borrowed thoughtsand their development, the natural sciences teach description of natural objects, apparatus and processes, as well as the statement of laws on the grounds of immediate sense-perception. But all these aids for exercise in the use of the mother tongue, each in its way valuable and indispensable, do not guarantee, in the same manner as mathematical training, the exclusion of words whose concepts, if not entirely wanting, are not sufficiently clear. They do not furnish in the same measure that which the mathematician demands particularly as regards precision of expression.
In Anleitung zum mathematischen Unterricht in höheren Schulen (1906), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Aid (101)  |  Allow (51)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Borrow (31)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Clear (111)  |  Composition (86)  |  Concept (242)  |  Connect (126)  |  Definite (114)  |  Demand (131)  |  Departure (9)  |  Description (89)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Empty (82)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Excel (4)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Expression (181)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Flight (101)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Give (208)  |  Ground (222)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Logical (57)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mother (116)  |  Mother Tongue (3)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Object (438)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perception (97)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Place (192)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Precision (72)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Process (439)  |  Proper (150)  |  Prose (11)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rhetoric (13)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Same (166)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Short (200)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Statement (148)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sufficiently (9)  |  Syntax (2)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Training (92)  |  Translation (21)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.
In Marilyn R. Zuckerman, Incredibly American: Releasing the Heart of Quality (1992), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Memory (144)  |  Pebble (27)  |  People (1031)  |  Seashore (7)  |  Small (489)  |  Store (49)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Walk (138)  |  Will (2350)

Men have been talking now for a week at the post office about the age of the great elm, as a matter interesting but impossible to be determined. The very choppers and travelers have stood upon its prostrate trunk and speculated upon its age, as if it were a profound mystery. I stooped and read its years to them (127 at nine and a half feet), but they heard me as the wind that once sighed through its branches. They still surmised that it might be two hundred years old, but they never stooped to read the inscription. Truly they love darkness rather than light. One said it was probably one hundred and fifty, for he had heard somebody say that for fifty years the elm grew, for fifty it stood still, and for fifty it was dying. (Wonder what portion of his career he stood still!) Truly all men are not men of science. They dwell within an integument of prejudice thicker than the bark of the cork-tree, but it is valuable chiefly to stop bottles with. Tied to their buoyant prejudices, they keep themselves afloat when honest swimmers sink.
(26 Jan 1856). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: VIII: November 1, 1855-August 15, 1856 (1906), 145-146.
Science quotes on:  |  Afloat (4)  |  Age (509)  |  Bark (19)  |  Bottle (17)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Career (86)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Cork (2)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Dwell (19)  |  Elm (4)  |  Forestry (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Honest (53)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Integument (4)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Light (635)  |  Love (328)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Office (71)  |  Old (499)  |  Portion (86)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Profound (105)  |  Read (308)  |  Say (989)  |  Sink (38)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Still (614)  |  Swimmer (4)  |  Talking (76)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truly (118)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Two (936)  |  Week (73)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

Men will never disappoint us if we observe two rules: (i) To find out what they are; (2) to expect them to be just that.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Expect (203)  |  Find (1014)  |  Observe (179)  |  Rule (307)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

Men will never fly, because flying is reserved for angels.
Attributed. As seen, for example, in Michael Blow, Men of Science and Invention (1961), 74. The subject quote can be found in several other books, and it is amusing to see how some writers’ imaginations create different contexts for it.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Will (2350)

Menny people are limiting after uncommon sense, but they never find it a good deal; uncommon sense iz ov the nature of genius, and all genius iz the gift of God, and kant be had, like hens eggs, for the hunting.
In The Complete Works of Josh Billings (1876), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Deal (192)  |  Egg (71)  |  Find (1014)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Hen (9)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Limit (294)  |  Nature (2017)  |  People (1031)  |  Sense (785)

Method means that arrangement of subject matter which makes it most effective in use. Never is method something outside of the material.
Democracy and Education: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Education (423)  |  Effective (68)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Outside (141)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Use (771)

Methods of fishing are becoming more and more efficient, but the whole fishing industry is based on the exploitation of a wild population. This is almost a prehistoric concept on land, but it has never been questioned at sea.
In Men, Machines, and Sacred Cows (1984), 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Concept (242)  |  Efficient (34)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fishing (20)  |  Industry (159)  |  Land (131)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Population (115)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Question (649)  |  Sea (326)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wild (96)

Microbiology is usually regarded as having no relevance to the feelings and aspirations of the man of flesh and bone. Yet, never in my professional life do I find myself far removed from the man of flesh and bone. It is not only because microbes are ubiquitous in our environment, and therefore must be studied for the sake of human welfare. More interesting, and far more important in the long run, is the fact that microbes exhibit profound resemblances to man. They resemble him in their physical makeup, in their properties, in their responses to various stimuli; they also display associations with other living things which have perplexing and illuminating analogies with human societies.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Association (49)  |  Bone (101)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Human (1512)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Microbes (14)  |  Microbiology (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perplex (6)  |  Physical (518)  |  Professional (77)  |  Profound (105)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relevance (18)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Response (56)  |  Sake (61)  |  Society (350)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Ubiquitous (5)  |  Usually (176)  |  Various (205)  |  Welfare (30)

Mistakes are at the very base of human thought feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done.
In The Medusa and the Snail (1979), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Being (1276)  |  Error (339)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Root (121)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thought (995)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wrong (246)

Modern war, even from the consideration of physical welfare, is not creative. Soldiers and civilians alike are supposed to put on mental khaki. … War means the death of that fertile war which consists of the free, restless conflict of ideas. The war which matters is that of the scientist with nature; of the farmer with the tawny desert; of … philosopher against … mob stupidity. Such war is creative. … Inventions that further life and joy; freedom; new knowledge, whether Luther Burbank’s about the breeding of fruits or Einstein's about relativity; great cathedrals and Beethoven's music: these modern mechanical war can destroy but never produce. At its most inventive height, war creates the Maxim gun, the submarine, disseminable germs of disease, life-blasting gases. Spiritually and intellectually, modern war is not creative.
From ‘The Stagnation of War’, in Allen D. Hole (ed.) The Messenger of Peace (Nov 1924), 49, No. 11, 162-163.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Alike (60)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beethoven_Ludwig (8)  |  Biological Warfare (3)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Luther Burbank (14)  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Consist (223)  |  Create (245)  |  Creative (144)  |  Death (406)  |  Desert (59)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Disease (340)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Germ (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Invention (400)  |  Joy (117)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mob (10)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physical (518)  |  Produce (117)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Spiritually (3)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Submarine (12)  |  Tawny (3)  |  War (233)  |  Welfare (30)

Modesty. Never think you know all. Though others may flatter you, retain the courage to say, “I am ignorant”.
Translation of a note, 'Bequest of Pavlov to the Academic Youth of his Country', written a few days before his death for a student magazine, The Generation of the Victors. As published in 'Pavlov and the Spirit of Science', Nature (4 Apr 1936), 137, 572.
Science quotes on:  |  Courage (82)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Know (1538)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Other (2233)  |  Retain (57)  |  Say (989)  |  Think (1122)

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Fill (67)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  Instead (23)  |  Man (2252)  |  Money (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Produce (117)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

Moral certainty is never more than probability.
On Crimes and Punishments (1764), Chapter 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Probability (135)

Most children have a bug period, and I never grew out of mine.
In Naturalist (1994, 2006), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Bug (10)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Entomologist (7)  |  Insect (89)  |  Mine (78)  |  Most (1728)  |  Period (200)

Most inventors who have an idea never stop to think whether their invention will be saleable when they get it made. Unless a man has plenty of money to throw away, he will find that making inventions is about the costliest amusement he can find.
As quoted in French Strother, 'The Modern Profession of Inventing', World's Work and Play (Jul 1905), 6, No. 32, 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Amusement (37)  |  Find (1014)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Stop (89)  |  Think (1122)  |  Throw Away (4)  |  Will (2350)

Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you’ll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won’t get started. It requires a lovely balance.
'You and Your Research', Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Balance (82)  |  Belief (615)  |  Create (245)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enough (341)  |  Error (339)  |  Fault (58)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Forward (104)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Notice (81)  |  People (1031)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Step (234)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Toleration (7)  |  Truth (1109)

Mr Hooke sent, in his next letter [to Sir Isaac Newton] the whole of his Hypothesis, scil that the gravitation was reciprocall to the square of the distance: ... This is the greatest Discovery in Nature that ever was since the World's Creation. It was never so much as hinted by any man before. I wish he had writt plainer, and afforded a little more paper.
Brief Lives (1680), edited by Oliver Lawson Dick (1949), 166-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hint (21)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inverse Square Law (5)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Paper (192)  |  Square (73)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

Mr. [Granville T.] Woods says that he has been frequently refused work because of the previous condition of his race, but he has had great determination and will and never despaired because of disappointments. He always carried his point by persistent efforts. He says the day is past when colored boys will be refused work only because of race prejudice. There are other causes. First, the boy has not the nerve to apply for work after being refused at two or three places. Second, the boy should have some knowledge of mechanics. The latter could be gained at technical schools, which should be founded for the purpose. And these schools must sooner or later be established, and thereby, we should be enabled to put into the hands of our boys and girls the actual means of livelihood.
From William J. Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising (1887), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  African American (8)  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boy (100)  |  Cause (561)  |  Color (155)  |  Condition (362)  |  Despair (40)  |  Determination (80)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Effort (243)  |  Establishment (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Girl (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Point (584)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Race (278)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

Mr. Dalton's aspect and manner were repulsive. There was no gracefulness belonging to him. His voice was harsh and brawling; his gait stiff and awkward; his style of writing and conversation dry and almost crabbed. In person he was tall, bony, and slender. He never could learn to swim: on investigating this circumstance he found that his spec. grav. as a mass was greater than that of water; and he mentioned this in his lectures on natural philosophy in illustration of the capability of different persons for attaining the art of swimming. Independence and simplicity of manner and originality were his best qualities. Though in comparatively humble circumstances he maintained the dignity of the philosophical character. As the first distinct promulgator of the doctrine that the elements of bodies unite in definite proportions to form chemical compounds, he has acquired an undying fame.
Dr John Davy's (brother of Humphry Davy) impressions of Dalton written in c.1830-31 in Malta.
John Davy
Quoted in W. C. Henry, Memoirs of the Life and Scientific Researches of John Dalton (1854), 217-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Art (680)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Best (467)  |  Biography (254)  |  Brother (47)  |  Capability (44)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conversation (46)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Definite (114)  |  Different (595)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Dry (65)  |  Element (322)  |  Fame (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Greater (288)  |  Humble (54)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Impression (118)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mention (84)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Unite (43)  |  Water (503)  |  Writing (192)

My children have often asked me why I never received a Nobel Prize. I used to tell them it was because the Nobel committee couldn’t make up its mind which of my projects to recognize.
As quoted by Malcolm W. Browne, in '3 American Physicists Get Nobel for Landmark Work', New York Times (20 Oct 1988), B12. (Lederman was a co-winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Physics.)
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Children (201)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Project (77)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Tell (344)  |  Why (491)

My imagination would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention
The Homiletic Review, Vol. 83-84 (1922), Vol. 84, 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Daily (91)  |  Habit (174)  |  Humble (54)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Patience (58)  |  Patient (209)

My method consists in allowing the mind to play freely for a very brief period, until a couple or so of ideas have passed through it, and then, while the traces or echoes of those ideas are still lingering in the brain, to turn the attention upon them with a sudden and complete awakening; to arrest, to scrutinise them, and to record their exact appearance... The general impression they have left upon me is like that which many of us have experienced when the basement of our house happens to be under thorough sanitary repairs, and we realise for the first time the complex system of drains and gas and water pipes, flues, bell-wires, and so forth, upon which our comfort depends, but which are usually hidden out of sight, and with whose existence, so long as they acted well, we had never troubled ourselves.
Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883),185-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Awakening (11)  |  Bell (35)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brief (37)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consist (223)  |  Depend (238)  |  Drain (12)  |  Existence (481)  |  First (1302)  |  Gas (89)  |  General (521)  |  Happen (282)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impression (118)  |  Long (778)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pass (241)  |  Period (200)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Record (161)  |  Sight (135)  |  Still (614)  |  Sudden (70)  |  System (545)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Usually (176)  |  Water (503)  |  Wire (36)

My original decision to devote myself to science was a direct result of the discovery which has never ceased to fill me with enthusiasm since my early youth—the comprehension of the far from obvious fact that the laws of human reasoning coincide with the laws governing the sequences of the impressions we receive from the world about us; that, therefore, pure reasoning can enable man to gain an insight into the mechanism of the latter. In this connection, it is of paramount importance that the outside world is something independent from man, something absolute, and the quest for the laws which apply to this absolute appeared to me as the most sublime scientific pursuit in life.
'A Scientific Autobiography' (1948), in Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. Frank Gaynor (1950), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conincidence (4)  |  Connection (171)  |  Decision (98)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Early (196)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fill (67)  |  Gain (146)  |  Governing (20)  |  Human (1512)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impression (118)  |  Independence (37)  |  Insight (107)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Original (61)  |  Outside (141)  |  Paramount (11)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Quest (39)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Receive (117)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Something (718)  |  Sublime (50)  |  World (1850)  |  Youth (109)

My present and most fixed opinion regarding the nature of alcoholic fermentation is this: The chemical act of fermentation is essentially a phenomenon correlative with a vital act, beginning and ending with the latter. I believe that there is never any alcoholic fermentation without their being simultaneously the organization, development, multiplication of the globules, or the pursued, continued life of globules which are already formed.
In 'Memoire sur la fermentation alcoolique', Annales de Chemie et de Physique (1860), 58:3, 359-360, as translated in Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Already (226)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Correlation (19)  |  Development (441)  |  Ending (3)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fermentation (15)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Globule (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organization (120)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Simultaneity (3)  |  Vital (89)  |  Vitality (24)

Napoleon: M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book [Système du Monde] on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.
Laplace: I have no need for this hypothesis. (Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.)
Quoted in Augustus De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes (1915), Vol. 2, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Creator (97)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Large (398)  |  Mention (84)  |  Napoleon (16)  |  System (545)  |  Tell (344)  |  Universe (900)

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
In Essay 1, 'History', Essays by R.W. Emerson (1841), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Cloud (111)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Same (166)

Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
Prefacé sur l'utilité des mathématiques et de la physique (1733), in Oeuvres, Vol. 5, 11. Trans. John Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics (1979), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Nature (2017)  |  Understood (155)

Nature never “fails.” Nature complies with its own laws. Nature is the law. When Man lacks understanding of Nature’s laws and a Man-contrived structure buckles unexpectedly, it does not fail. It only demonstrates that Man did not understand Nature’s laws and behaviors. Nothing failed. Man’s knowledge or estimating was inadequate.
In "How Little I Know", in Saturday Review (12 Nov 1966), 152. Excerpted in Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Behavior (95)  |  Buckle (5)  |  Compliance (8)  |  Contrive (10)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Structure (365)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unexpected (55)

Nature never breaks her own laws.
(E 43 r.) In Edward McCurdy (ed., trans.), Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books: Arranged and Rendered into English (1908), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)

Nature never jests.
Reflexions sur le système de la Generation de M. de Buffon (1751), 50. Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, edited by Keith R. Benson, trans. Robert Ellrich (1997), 494.
Science quotes on:  |  Nature (2017)

Nature never makes excellent things, for mean or no uses: and it is hardly to be conceived, that our infinitely wise Creator, should make so admirable a Faculty, as the power of Thinking, that Faculty which comes nearest the Excellency of his own incomprehensible Being, to be so idlely and uselesly employ’d, at least 1/4 part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of those Thoughts, without doing any good to it self or others, or being anyway useful to any other part of Creation.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 2, Chapter 1, Section 15, 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Doing (277)  |  Employ (115)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Good (906)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Self (268)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wise (143)

Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection.
In Emerson’s Complete Works: Volume 1, Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1855, 1889), 13-14.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Extort (2)  |  Finding (34)  |  Lose (165)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Secret (216)  |  Wear (20)  |  Wisest (2)

Nature seems to take advantage of the simple mathematical representations of the symmetry laws. When one pauses to consider the elegance and the beautiful perfection of the mathematical reasoning involved and contrast it with the complex and far-reaching physical consequences, a deep sense of respect for the power of the symmetry laws never fails to develop.
Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1957). In Nobel Lectures: Physics, 1981-1990) (1998), 394-395.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Deep (241)  |  Develop (278)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Fail (191)  |  Involved (90)  |  Law (913)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Representation (55)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Symmetry (44)

Nature! … She is ever shaping new forms: what is, has never yet been; what has been, comes not again. Everything is new, and yet nought but the old.
As quoted by T.H. Huxley, in Norman Lockyer (ed.), 'Nature: Aphorisms by Goethe', Nature (1870), 1, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Everything (489)  |  Form (976)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Shape (77)

Negative facts when considered alone never teach us anything.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Consider (428)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Negative (66)  |  Teach (299)

Never any knowledge was delivered in the same order it was invented.
'Of the Interpretation of Nature' (c.1603) in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1887-1901), Vol. 3, 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Deliver (30)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Order (638)

Never ask me what I have said or what I have written; but if you will ask what my present opinions are, I will tell you.
As quoted by Drewry Ottley, 'The Life of John Hunter', in James Frederick Palmer (ed.), The Works of John Hunter (1835), Vol. 1, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Present (630)  |  Tell (344)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.
Anonymous
Ralph Keyes, in The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When (2007), 116, states “This is a new saw that floats about in search of an originator.” It was seen, for example, in the her advice column, shortly before Abby stopped writing her column. A variant, with only the “amateurs” and “professionals" clauses, appears as early 1984 in The World Economy, Vol. 7, 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Amateur (22)  |  Ark (6)  |  Build (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Professional (77)  |  Remember (189)  |  Something (718)  |  Titanic (4)  |  Try (296)

Never believe that the atom is a complex mystery—it is not. The atom is what we find when we look for the underlying architecture in nature, whose bricks are as few, as simple and orderly as possible.
Quoted in Andrew Jon Rotter, Hiroshima (2008), 7, without citation. Also in 'ABC of the Atom'. Reader's Digest (Feb 1952), 40, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Architecture (50)  |  Atom (381)  |  Belief (615)  |  Brick (20)  |  Complex (202)  |  Find (1014)  |  Look (584)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Possible (560)  |  Simple (426)  |  Underlying (33)

Never burn your bridges, especially if you pursue science as a career.
Anonymous
Found in The NIH Catalyst (May-June 2003), 11, No. 3, 8, as part of list 'A Scientist’s Dozen,' cited as “culled and adapted…from a variety of sources” by Howard Young.
Science quotes on:  |  Bridge (49)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Career (86)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Pursuit (128)

Never confuse a fool’s gold opportunity with a silver bullet solution.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Bullet (6)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Fool (121)  |  Gold (101)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Silver (49)  |  Solution (282)

Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.
As quoted, without citation, in David Suzuki and Holly Dressel , From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis (1999, 2009), 347.
Science quotes on:  |  Depend (238)  |  Founded (22)  |  Government (116)  |  Guide (107)  |  Individual (420)  |  Institution (73)  |  Motivated (14)  |  Movement (162)  |  Passion (121)  |  Problem (731)  |  Social (261)  |  Solve (145)  |  Through (846)

Never despair
Horace
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 245
Science quotes on:  |  Despair (40)

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Demand (131)  |  Do (1905)  |  State (505)

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Although this quote is frequently seen, “the quotation does not appear in any of Mead’s published work, and may have first appeared in one of her public speeches, perhaps, some say, in her speech at the first Earth Day celebration in 1970.” As stated by Nancy Lutkehaus, 'Margaret Mead: Public Anthropologist', Anthropology Now (Apr 2009), 1, No. 1, 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Group (83)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Small (489)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  World (1850)

Never fear big long words.
Big long words name little things.
All big things have little names.
Such as life and death, peace and war.
Or dawn, day, night, hope, love, home.
Learn to use little words in a big way.
It is hard to do,
But they say what you mean.
When you don't know what you mean, use big words.
That often fools little people.
Quoted in Saturday Review (1962), 45, No. 2. It was written (1936) for his son, as advice for young copy writers. - 1995
Science quotes on:  |  Big (55)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fool (121)  |  Hard (246)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Love (328)  |  Mean (810)  |  Name (359)  |  Peace (116)  |  People (1031)  |  Poem (104)  |  Publication (102)  |  Say (989)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  War (233)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)  |  Writing (192)

Never forget that it is not a pneumonia, but a pneumonic man who is your patient.
In Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), xxiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Forget (125)  |  Man (2252)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pneumonia (8)  |  Treatment (135)

Never forget that tyranny most often springs from a fanatical faith in the absoluteness of one’s beliefs.
In Ashley Montagu (ed.), Science and Creationism (1984), Introduction, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Absoluteness (4)  |  Belief (615)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fanatical (3)  |  Forget (125)  |  Most (1728)  |  Spring (140)  |  Tyranny (15)

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
In Dr. N Sreedharan, Quotations of Wit and Wisdom (2007), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Doctor (191)  |  Office (71)  |  Plant (320)

Never in its life has the sun seen shade,
Never in its life seen a shadow where it falls:
There, always there, in the sun-swept glade,
It lurks below the leaf; behind bodies, under walls,
Creeps, clings, hides. Be it millions, be it one—
The sun sees no shadow, and no shadow sees the sun.
Poem, as quoted in Arthur E. Shipley, Life: A Book for Elementary Students (1925, 2013), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Cling (6)  |  Creep (15)  |  Fall (243)  |  Hide (70)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Million (124)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Sun (407)  |  Wall (71)

Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  Laugh (50)  |  People (1031)

Never leave an unsolved difficulty behind. I mean, don’t go any further in that book till the difficulty is conquered. In this point, Mathematics differs entirely from most other subjects. Suppose you are reading an Italian book, and come to a hopelessly obscure sentence—don’t waste too much time on it, skip it, and go on; you will do very well without it. But if you skip a mathematical difficulty, it is sure to crop up again: you will find some other proof depending on it, and you will only get deeper and deeper into the mud.
From letter to Edith Rix with hints for studying (about Mar 1885), in Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Book (413)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Crop (26)  |  Deep (241)  |  Depend (238)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hopeless (17)  |  Italian (13)  |  Learning (291)  |  Leave (138)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mud (26)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Skip (4)  |  Studying (70)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Waste (109)  |  Will (2350)

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Doing (277)  |  Let (64)  |  Moral (203)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Right (473)  |  Sense (785)

Never look for a psychological explanation unless every effort to find a cultural one has been exhausted.
Final summary statement of his lectures on psychological aspects of culture. As quoted by Margaret Mead (who was a student of Benedict), in Ruth Benedict, 'Search: 1920-1930', An Anthropologist at Work (1959, 2011), 16. Mead explains: “‘Psychological’ referred to the innate, generic characteristics of the mind; ‘cultural’ referred to the behavior learned as a member of a given society.”
Science quotes on:  |  Cultural (26)  |  Effort (243)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  Look (584)  |  Psychological (42)

Never lose a holy curiosity.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Holy (35)  |  Lose (165)

Never memorize what you can look up in books.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Look (584)  |  Memorize (4)

Never mind what two tons refers to. What is it? How has it entered in so definite a way into our exprerience? Two tons is the reading of the pointer when the elephant was placed on a weighing machine. Let us pass on. … And so we see that the poetry fades out of the problem, and by the time the serious application of exact science begins we are left only with pointer readings.
From Gifford Lecture, Edinburgh, (1927), 'Pointer Readings', collected in The Nature of the Physical World (1928), 252.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Begin (275)  |  Definite (114)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Enter (145)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pass (241)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Pointer (6)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reading (136)  |  See (1094)  |  Serious (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ton (25)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

Never promote a man who hasn’t made some bad mistakes, because you would be promoting someone who hasn’t done much.
As quoted, without citation, in Ken Fisher and Aaron Anderson (ed.), 'The Other Dow Theory: January 4, 1993', The Making of a Market Guru: Forbes Presents 25 Years of Ken Fisher (2010), 187. The author, Ken Fisher, writes that when young and caught doing something wrong, his father “would quote Dow to me and then insist on analyzing what I had done wrong in the interest of learning from it.”
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Make (25)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Promote (32)

Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Belong (168)  |  Community (111)  |  Duty (71)  |  Influence (231)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Late (119)  |  Learn (672)  |  Liberate (10)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Personal (75)  |  Profit (56)  |  Realm (87)  |  Regard (312)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Work (1402)

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.
In The Schweitzer Album: A Portrait in Words and Pictures (1965), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Say (989)  |  Shape (77)  |  Something (718)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trembling (4)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wondering (3)  |  World (1850)

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
War as I Knew It (1947, 1995) 357.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  How (3)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  People (1031)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  People (1031)  |  Tell (344)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Worthy (35)

Never to have seen anything but the temperate zone is to have lived on the fringe of the world. Between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer live the majority of all the plant species, the vast majority of the insects, most of the strange ... quadrupeds, all of the great and most of the poisonous snakes and large lizards, most of the brilliantly colored sea fishes, and the strangest and most gorgeously plumaged of the birds.
Exploring For Plants (1930), 329.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Color (155)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fringe (7)  |  Great (1610)  |  Insect (89)  |  Large (398)  |  Live (650)  |  Lizard (7)  |  Majority (68)  |  Most (1728)  |  Plant (320)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Sea (326)  |  Snake (29)  |  Species (435)  |  Strange (160)  |  Vast (188)  |  World (1850)

Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than ... [the] assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing causes of change.
Principles of Geology(1830-3), Vol. 3, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Blunt (5)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Discord (10)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Edge (51)  |  Former (138)  |  Foster (12)  |  Indolence (8)  |  More (2558)

Never, I believe, did a vessel leave England better provided, or fitted for the service she was destined to perform, and for the health and comfort of her crew, than the Beagle. If we did want any thing which could have been carried, it was our own fault; for all that was asked for, from the Dockyard, Victualling Department, Navy Board, or Admiralty, was granted.
In Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the Years 1826 and 1836 (1839), Vol. 2, 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiralty (2)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beagle (14)  |  Better (493)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Crew (10)  |  Department (93)  |  Destined (42)  |  Dockyard (2)  |  Fault (58)  |  Grant (76)  |  Health (210)  |  Navy (10)  |  Perform (123)  |  Service (110)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Want (504)

New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment.
Address on the 25th anniversary of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft (Jan 1936). Quoted in Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany (1993), 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Community (111)  |  Head (87)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Moment (260)  |  New (1273)  |  Organization (120)  |  Point (584)  |  Problem (731)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Single (365)  |  Spring (140)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unite (43)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

Newton made a universe which lasted 300 years. Einstein has made a universe, which I suppose you want me to say will never stop, but I don't know how long it will last.
Speech (28 Oct 1930) at the Savoy Hotel, London in Einstein’s honor sponsored by a committee to help needy Jews in Eastern Europe. In Albert Einstein, Cosmic Religion: With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Existence (481)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Say (989)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

No man is a good doctor who has never been sick himself.
Chinese proverb.
Science quotes on:  |  Disease (340)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  Physician (284)  |  Sick (83)

No man is a good physician who has never been sick.
Anonymous
Arabic proverb.
Science quotes on:  |  Good (906)  |  Man (2252)  |  Physician (284)  |  Proverb (29)  |  Sick (83)

No matter how correct a mathematical theorem may appear to be, one ought never to be satisfied that there was not something imperfect about it until it also gives the impression of being beautiful.
As quoted in Desmond MacHale. Comic Sections (1993), 107, without citation. Please contact the Webmaster if you know the primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Correct (95)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Impression (118)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Something (718)  |  Theorem (116)

No part of Mathematics suffers more from the triviality of its initial presentation to beginners than the great subject of series. Two minor examples of series, namely arithmetic and geometric series, are considered; these examples are important because they are the simplest examples of an important general theory. But the general ideas are never disclosed; and thus the examples, which exemplify nothing, are reduced to silly trivialities.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Beginner (11)  |  Consider (428)  |  Considered (12)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Example (98)  |  Exemplify (5)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Initial (17)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minor (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Reduced (3)  |  Series (153)  |  Silly (17)  |  Simple (426)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Triviality (3)  |  Two (936)

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a publick library; for who can see the wall crouded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to encrease the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism has delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power.
Non unquam dedit
Documenta fors majora, quam fragili loco
Starent superbi.

Seneca, Troades, II, 4-6
Insulting chance ne'er call'd with louder voice,
On swelling mortals to be proud no more.
Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered, and owed the honours which they have once obtained, not to judgment or to genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the stratagem of intrigue, or the servility of adulation.
Nothing is more common than to find men whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries, as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science. Curiosity is naturally excited, their volumes after long enquiry are found, but seldom reward the labour of the search. Every period of time has produced these bubbles of artificial fame, which are kept up a while by the breath of fashion and then break at once and are annihilated. The learned often bewail the loss of ancient writers whose characters have survived their works; but perhaps if we could now retrieve them we should find them only the Granvilles, Montagus, Stepneys, and Sheffields of their time, and wonder by what infatuation or caprice they could be raised to notice.
It cannot, however, be denied, that many have sunk into oblivion, whom it were unjust to number with this despicable class. Various kinds of literary fame seem destined to various measures of duration. Some spread into exuberance with a very speedy growth, but soon wither and decay; some rise more slowly, but last long. Parnassus has its flowers of transient fragrance as well as its oaks of towering height, and its laurels of eternal verdure.
The Rambler, Number 106, 23 Mar 1751. In W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss (eds.), The Rambler (1969), Vol. 2, 200-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Advance (298)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Break (109)  |  Breath (61)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Caprice (10)  |  Chance (244)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decree (9)  |  Delight (111)  |  Destined (42)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faction (4)  |  Fame (51)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Genius (301)  |  Growth (200)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Library (53)  |  Long (778)  |  Loss (117)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Measure (241)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Oak (16)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Performance (51)  |  Period (200)  |  Perpetuity (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Produced (187)  |  Remember (189)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Side (236)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Statue (17)  |  Striking (48)  |  Time (1911)  |  Towering (11)  |  Transient (13)  |  Vain (86)  |  Various (205)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wit (61)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

No! What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters. And it is to the women of the future that I look for the needed reformation. Educate and train women so that they are rendered independent of marriage as a means of gaining a home and a living, and you will bring about natural selection in marriage, which will operate most beneficially upon humanity. When all women are placed in a position that they are independent of marriage, I am inclined to think that large numbers will elect to remain unmarried—in some cases, for life, in others, until they encounter the man of their ideal. I want to see women the selective agents in marriage; as things are, they have practically little choice. The only basis for marriage should be a disinterested love. I believe that the unfit will be gradually eliminated from the race, and human progress secured, by giving to the pure instincts of women the selective power in marriage. You can never have that so long as women are driven to marry for a livelihood.
In 'Heredity and Pre-Natal Influences. An Interview With Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace', Humanitarian (1894), 4, 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Basis (180)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bring (95)  |  Case (102)  |  Choice (114)  |  Disinterest (8)  |  Driven (4)  |  Duty (71)  |  Educate (14)  |  Educated (12)  |  Elect (5)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Future (467)  |  Gaining (2)  |  Giving (11)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Independent (74)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Marry (11)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Need (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Operate (19)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Position (83)  |  Power (771)  |  Practically (10)  |  Progress (492)  |  Public (100)  |  Pure (299)  |  Race (278)  |  Reform (22)  |  Reformation (6)  |  Reformed (4)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Rendered (2)  |  Secured (18)  |  See (1094)  |  Selection (130)  |  Selective (21)  |  Society (350)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Train (118)  |  Unfit (13)  |  Unmarried (3)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)

Nobody before the Pythagoreans had thought that mathematical relations held the secret of the universe. Twenty-five centuries later, Europe is still blessed and cursed with their heritage. To non-European civilizations, the idea that numbers are the key to both wisdom and power, seems never to have occurred.
In The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), Preface, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Bless (25)  |  Blessed (20)  |  Both (496)  |  Century (319)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Europe (50)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Idea (881)  |  Key (56)  |  Later (18)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Power (771)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Relation (166)  |  Secret (216)  |  Still (614)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wisdom (235)

Nobody knows how the stand of our knowledge about the atom would be without him. Personally, [Niels] Bohr is one of the amiable colleagues I have met. He utters his opinions like one perpetually groping and never like one who believes himself to be in possession of the truth.
Quoted in Bill Becker, 'Pioneer of the Atom', New York Times Sunday Magazine (20 Oct 1957), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Amiable (10)  |  Atom (381)  |  Belief (615)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Groping (3)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Personally (7)  |  Possession (68)  |  Stand (284)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Without (13)

Not all living creatures die. An amoeba, for example, need never die; it need not even, like certain generals, fade away. It just divides and becomes two new amoebas.
In talk, 'Origin of Death' (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Creature (242)  |  Death (406)  |  Divide (77)  |  Division (67)  |  General (521)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  New (1273)  |  Two (936)

Not only such Actions as were at first Indifferent to us, but even such as were Painful, will by Custom and Practice become Pleasant. Sir Francis Bacon observes in his Natural Philosophy, that our Taste is never pleased better, than with those things which at first created a Disgust in it. He gives particular Instances of Claret, Coffee, and other Liquors, which the Palate seldom approves upon the first Taste; but when it has once got a Relish of them, generally retains it for Life.
In The Spectator (2 Aug 1712), No. 447, collected in The Spectator (9th ed., 1728), Vol. 6, 225-226.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Addiction (6)  |  Alcoholism (6)  |  Approval (12)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Become (821)  |  Better (493)  |  Coffee (21)  |  Custom (44)  |  Disgust (10)  |  First (1302)  |  Indifference (16)  |  Life (1870)  |  Liquor (6)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Palate (3)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Practice (212)  |  Relish (4)  |  Retain (57)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

Nothing afflicted Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes, who was then, as fate would have it, intent upon working out some problem by a diagram, and having fixed his mind alike and his eyes upon the subject of his speculation, he never noticed the incursion of the Romans, nor that the city was taken. In this transport of study and contemplation, a soldier, unexpectedly coming up to him, commanded him to follow to Marcellus, which he declined to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration; the soldier, enraged, drew his sword and ran him through. Others write, that a Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him; and that Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was at work upon inconclusive and imperfect; but the soldier, nothing moved by his entreaty, instantly killed him. Others again relate, that as Archimedes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold in a vessel, slew him. Certain it is, that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer; and that he sought for his kindred and honoured them with signal favours.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Afflict (4)  |  Alike (60)  |  Angle (25)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Back (395)  |  Beseech (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Certain (557)  |  City (87)  |  Coming (114)  |  Command (60)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Death (406)  |  Decline (28)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Dial (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Earnestly (4)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fate (76)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fix (34)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gold (101)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hold (96)  |  Honour (58)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Inconclusive (3)  |  Incursion (2)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intent (9)  |  Kill (100)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Leave (138)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Marcellus (2)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Move (223)  |  Murderer (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relate (26)  |  Roman (39)  |  Run (158)  |  Running (61)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Seek (218)  |  Sight (135)  |  Signal (29)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sword (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Through (846)  |  Transport (31)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

Nothing afflicted Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes, who was then, as fate would have it, intent upon working out some problem by a diagram, and having fixed his mind alike and his eyes upon the subject of his speculation, he never noticed the incursion of the Romans, nor that the city was taken. In this transport of study and contemplation, a soldier, unexpectedly coming up to him, commanded him to follow to Marcellus, which he declined to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration; the soldier, enraged, drew his sword and ran him through. Others write, that a Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him; and that Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was at work upon inconclusive and imperfect; but the soldier, nothing moved by his entreaty, instantly killed him. Others again relate, that as Archimedes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold in a vessel, slew him. Certain it is, that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer; and that he sought for his kindred and honoured them with signal favours.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Back (395)  |  Certain (557)  |  City (87)  |  Coming (114)  |  Command (60)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Death (406)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Dial (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fate (76)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gold (101)  |  Honour (58)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kill (100)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Regard (312)  |  Roman (39)  |  Running (61)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sight (135)  |  Signal (29)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Through (846)  |  Transport (31)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language. Especial attention was paid to versemaking, and this I could never do well. I had many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses, which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could work into any subject.
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attention (196)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blank (14)  |  Boy (100)  |  Classical (49)  |  Collection (68)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Friend (180)  |  Geography (39)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Mastering (11)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poetry (150)  |  School (227)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Together (392)  |  Verse (11)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them.
Letter to Thomas Manning (2 Jan 1810), collected in The Works of Charles Lamb: The Letters of Charles Lamb (1851), Vol. 1, 155.
Science quotes on:  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Space (523)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)

Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.
In The Foundation Trilogy (1951), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Danger (127)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Faith (209)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Other (2233)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  User (5)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Will (2350)

Now it is a well-known principle of zoological evolution that an isolated region, if large and sufficiently varied in its topography, soil, climate and vegetation, will give rise to a diversified fauna according to the law of adaptive radiation from primitive and central types. Branches will spring off in all directions to take advantage of every possible opportunity of securing food. The modifications which animals undergo in this adaptive radiation are largely of mechanical nature, they are limited in number and kind by hereditary, stirp or germinal influences, and thus result in the independent evolution of similar types in widely-separated regions under the law of parallelism or homoplasy. This law causes the independent origin not only of similar genera but of similar families and even of our similar orders. Nature thus repeats herself upon a vast scale, but the similarity is never complete and exact.
'The Geological and Faunal Relations of Europe and America during the Tertiary Period and the Theory of the Successive Invasions of an African Fauna', Science (1900), 11, 563-64.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Animal (651)  |  Branch (155)  |  Cause (561)  |  Central (81)  |  Climate (102)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Direction (185)  |  Diversification (2)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Family (101)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Food (213)  |  Genus (27)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Independence (37)  |  Influence (231)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Parallelism (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Region (40)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scale (122)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spring (140)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoology (38)

Now, at Suiattle Pass, Brower was still talking about butterflies. He said he had raised them from time to time and had often watched them emerge from the chrysalis—first a crack in the case, then a feeler, and in an hour a butterfly. He said he had felt that he wanted to help, to speed them through the long and awkward procedure; and he had once tried. The butterflies came out with extended abdomens, and their wings were balled together like miniature clenched fists. Nothing happened. They sat there until they died. ‘I have never gotten over that,’ he said. ‘That kind of information is all over in the country, but it’s not in town.”
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abdomen (6)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Ball (64)  |  Brower (2)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Case (102)  |  Clench (3)  |  Country (269)  |  Crack (15)  |  Die (94)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Extend (129)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeler (3)  |  First (1302)  |  Fist (3)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Help (116)  |  Hour (192)  |  Information (173)  |  Kind (564)  |  Long (778)  |  Miniature (7)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Often (109)  |  Pass (241)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Raise (38)  |  Say (989)  |  Sit (51)  |  Speed (66)  |  Still (614)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Town (30)  |  Try (296)  |  Want (504)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wing (79)

Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Ch. 3, 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Creep (15)  |  Die (94)  |  Discover (571)  |  Late (119)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nowadays (6)  |  People (1031)  |  Regret (31)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sort (50)  |  Thing (1914)

Nowadays there is a pill for everything—to keep your nose from running, to keep you regular, to keep your heart beating, to keep your hair from falling out, to improve your muscle tone ... Why thanks to advances in medical science, every day people are dying who never looked better.
Anonymous
In Ashton Applewhite, William R. Evans and Andrew Frothingham, And I Quote (2003), 174-175.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Better (493)  |  Death (406)  |  Everything (489)  |  Heart (243)  |  Look (584)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Muscle (47)  |  People (1031)  |  Regular (48)  |  Running (61)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Tone (22)  |  Why (491)

Number theorists are like lotus-eaters—having tasted this food they can never give it up.
As quoted in Howard Eves, Mathematical Circles Squared (1972), 149. In Homer’s The Odyssey, lotus-eaters live in a state of dreamy forgetfulness and idleness from eating lotus fruit. Thus a lotus-eater pursues pleasure and luxury rather than dealing with practical concerns.
Science quotes on:  |  Food (213)  |  Give Up (10)  |  Number (710)  |  Number Theory (6)  |  Taste (93)  |  Theorist (44)

Nursing has sometimes been made a trade, sometimes a profession; it will never be what it should be until it is made a religion.
As quoted in Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), xxx.
Science quotes on:  |  Nurse (33)  |  Nursing (9)  |  Profession (108)  |  Religion (369)  |  Trade (34)  |  Will (2350)

Occurrences that other men would have noted only with the most casual interest became for Whitney exciting opportunities to experiment. Once he became disturbed by a scientist's seemingly endless pursuit of irrelevant details in the course of an experiment, and criticized this as being as pointless as grabbing beans out of a pot, recording the numbers, and then analyzing the results. Later that day, after he had gone home, his simile began to intrigue him, and he asked himself whether it would really be pointless to count beans gathered in such a random manner. Another man might well have dismissed this as an idle fancy, but to Whitney an opportunity to conduct an experiment was not to be overlooked. Accordingly, he set a pot of beans beside his bed, and for several days each night before retiring he would take as many beans as he could grasp in one hand and make a note of how many were in the handful. After several days had passed he was intrigued to find that the results were not as unrewarding as he had expected. He found that each handful contained more beans than the one before, indicating that with practice he was learning to grasp more and more beans. “This might be called research in morphology, the science of animal structure,” he mused. “My hand was becoming webbed … so I said to myself: never label a real experiment useless, it may reveal something unthought of but worth knowing.”
'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 358-359.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bean (3)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Count (107)  |  Course (413)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Detail (150)  |  Dismissal (2)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Disturbed (15)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gather (76)  |  Grab (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Handful (14)  |  Himself (461)  |  Home (184)  |  Idle (34)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intrigued (4)  |  Irrelevance (4)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Label (11)  |  Learning (291)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Number (710)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pointless (7)  |  Pot (4)  |  Practice (212)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Random (42)  |  Recording (13)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Set (400)  |  Simile (8)  |  Something (718)  |  Structure (365)  |  Uselessness (22)  |  Worth (172)

October 9, 1863
Always, however great the height of the balloon, when I have seen the horizon it has roughly appeared to be on the level of the car though of course the dip of the horizon is a very appreciable quantity or the same height as the eye. From this one might infer that, could the earth be seen without a cloud or anything to obscure it, and the boundary line of the plane approximately the same height as the eye, the general appearance would be that of a slight concavity; but I have never seen any part of the surface of the earth other than as a plane.
Towns and cities, when viewed from the balloon are like models in motion. I shall always remember the ascent of 9th October, 1863, when we passed over London about sunset. At the time when we were 7,000 feet high, and directly over London Bridge, the scene around was one that cannot probably be equalled in the world. We were still so low as not to have lost sight of the details of the spectacle which presented itself to our eyes; and with one glance the homes of 3,000,000 people could be seen, and so distinct was the view, that every large building was easily distinguishable. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts most clearly. All round, the suburbs were also very distinct, with their lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in a mass of shrubs; beyond, the country was like a garden, its fields, well marked, becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered farther and farther away.
Again looking down, there was the Thames, throughout its whole length, without the slightest mist, dotted over its winding course with innumerable ships and steamboats, like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, also the mouth of the Thames, and the coast around as far as Norfolk. The southern shore of the mouth of the Thames was not so clear, but the sea beyond was seen for many miles; when at a higher elevation, I looked for the coast of France, but was unable to see it. On looking round, the eye was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed yet more careful attention.
Smoke, thin and blue, was curling from it, and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all except one part, south of the Thames, where it was less blue and seemed more dense, till the cause became evident; it was mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limit of which was bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, everywhere free from cloud, except near the horizon, where a band of cumulus and stratus extended all round, forming a fitting boundary to such a glorious view.
As seen from the earth, the sunset this evening was described as fine, the air being clear and the shadows well defined; but, as we rose to view it and its effects, the golden hues increased in intensity; their richness decreased as the distance from the sun increased, both right and left; but still as far as 90º from the sun, rose-coloured clouds extended. The remainder of the circle was completed, for the most part, by pure white cumulus of well-rounded and symmetrical forms.
I have seen London by night. I have crossed it during the day at the height of four miles. I have often admired the splendour of sky scenery, but never have I seen anything which surpassed this spectacle. The roar of the town heard at this elevation was a deep, rich, continuous sound the voice of labour. At four miles above London, all was hushed; no sound reached our ears.
Travels in the Air (1871), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Bound (120)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Building (158)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completed (30)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Farther (51)  |  Field (378)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Low (86)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mist (17)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shrub (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  South (39)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Suburb (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Thames (6)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wander (44)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  World (1850)

Oersted would never have made his great discovery of the action of galvanic currents on magnets had he stopped in his researches to consider in what manner they could possibly be turned to practical account; and so we would not now be able to boast of the wonders done by the electric telegraphs. Indeed, no great law in Natural Philosophy has ever been discovered for its practical implications, but the instances are innumerable of investigations apparently quite useless in this narrow sense of the word which have led to the most valuable results.
From Silvanus Phillips Thompson, 'Introductory Lecture to the Course on Natural Philosophy', The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910), Vol. 1, Appendix to Chap. 5, 249.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Action (342)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Boast (22)  |  Consider (428)  |  Current (122)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electric (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Implication (25)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Instance (33)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Manner (62)  |  Most (1728)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Hans Christian Oersted (5)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Practical (225)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sense Of The Word (6)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Turn (454)  |  Useless (38)  |  Value (393)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Word (650)

Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea…
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Element (322)  |  Mobility (11)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sea (326)  |  Second (66)  |  Unite (43)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)

Oh, don't tell me of facts, I never believe facts; you know, [George] Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.
Lady Saba Holland, A Memoir of The Reverend Sydney Smith (1854), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fallacious (13)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Figure (162)  |  Know (1538)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Tell (344)

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew
and, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Blue (63)  |  Bond (46)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Chase (14)  |  Climb (39)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Craft (11)  |  Dance (35)  |  Delirious (2)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eager (17)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Face (214)  |  Fling (5)  |  Fly (153)  |  God (776)  |  Grace (31)  |  Hall (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Height (33)  |  High (370)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Join (32)  |  Lark (2)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Lift (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mirth (3)  |  Sanctity (4)  |  Shout (25)  |  Silence (62)  |  Silent (31)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Slip (6)  |  Soar (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlit (2)  |  Sunward (2)  |  Swing (12)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Top (100)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tread (17)  |  Tumble (3)  |  Tumbling (2)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wing (79)

Oh, most magnificent and noble Nature!
Have I not worshipped thee with such a love
As never mortal man before displayed?
Adored thee in thy majesty of visible creation,
And searched into thy hidden and mysterious ways
As Poet, as Philosopher, as Sage?
A late fragment, probably written when he knew he was dying, in Fragmentary Remains (1858), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Display (59)  |  Love (328)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Poem (104)  |  Research (753)  |  Sage (25)  |  Search (175)  |  Visible (87)  |  Way (1214)

Old King Coal was a merry old soul:
“I’ll move the world,” quoth he;
“My England’s high, and rich, and great,
But greater she shall be !”
And he call’d for the pick, and he call’d for the spade,
And he call’d for his miners bold;
“ And it’s dig,” he said, “in the deep, deep earth;
You’ll find my treasures better worth
Than mines of Indian gold!”

Old King Coal was a merry old soul,
Yet not content was he;
And he said, “I’ve found what I’ve desired,
Though ’tis but one of three.”
And he call’d for water, he call’d for fire,
For smiths and workmen true:
“Come, build me engines great and strong ;
We’ll have,” quoth he, “a change ere long;
We’ll try what Steam can do.”

Old King Coal was a merry old soul:
“’Tis fairly done,” quoth he,
When he saw the myriad wheels at work
O’er all the land and sea.
They spared the bones and strength of men,
They hammer’d, wove, and spun;
There was nought too great, too mean, or small,
The giant Steam had power for all;—
His task was never done.
From song, 'Old King Coal' (1846), collected in The Poetical Works of Charles Mackay: Now for the First Time Collected Complete in One Volume (1876), 565. To the melody of 'Old King Cole'.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Blacksmith (5)  |  Bold (22)  |  Bone (101)  |  Build (211)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Coal (64)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dig (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Engine (99)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Giant (73)  |  Gold (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hammer (26)  |  High (370)  |  Indian (32)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Long (778)  |  Loom (20)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mine (78)  |  Miner (9)  |  Move (223)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Old (499)  |  Pick (16)  |  Power (771)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Small (489)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spade (3)  |  Steam (81)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Task (152)  |  Transport (31)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Try (296)  |  Water (503)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Work (1402)  |  Workman (13)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

Old mathematicians never die; they just lose some of their functions.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Die (94)  |  Function (235)  |  Joke (90)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Old (499)

On one occasion, when he was giving a dinner to some friends at the university, he left the table to get them a bottle of wine; but, on his way to the cellar, he fell into reflection, forgot his errand and his company, went to his chamber, put on his surplice, and proceeded to the chapel. Sometimes he would go into the street half dressed, and on discovering his condition, run back in great haste, much abashed. Often, while strolling in his garden, he would suddenly stop, and then run rapidly to his room, and begin to write, standing, on the first piece of paper that presented itself. Intending to dine in the public hall, he would go out in a brown study, take the wrong turn, walk a while, and then return to his room, having totally forgotten the dinner. Once having dismounted from his horse to lead him up a hill, the horse slipped his head out of the bridle; but Newton, oblivious, never discovered it till, on reaching a tollgate at the top of the hill, he turned to remount and perceived that the bridle which he held in his hand had no horse attached to it. His secretary records that his forgetfulness of his dinner was an excellent thing for his old housekeeper, who “sometimes found both dinner and supper scarcely tasted of, which the old woman has very pleasantly and mumpingly gone away with”. On getting out of bed in the morning, he has been discovered to sit on his bedside for hours without dressing himself, utterly absorbed in thought.
In 'Sir Isaac Newton', People’s Book of Biography: Or, Short Lives of the Most Interesting Persons of All Ages and Countries (1868), 257.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Back (395)  |  Bedside (3)  |  Begin (275)  |  Both (496)  |  Brown (23)  |  Cellar (4)  |  Chapel (3)  |  Company (63)  |  Condition (362)  |  Dinner (15)  |  Discover (571)  |  First (1302)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgetfulness (8)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Friend (180)  |  Garden (64)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hour (192)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Morning (98)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Oblivious (9)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Paper (192)  |  Present (630)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Record (161)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Return (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Secretary (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Street (25)  |  Stroll (4)  |  Study (701)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Supper (10)  |  Table (105)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Top (100)  |  Turn (454)  |  University (130)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wine (39)  |  Woman (160)  |  Write (250)  |  Wrong (246)

On our planet, all objects are subject to continual and inevitable changes which arise from the essential order of things. These changes take place at a variable rate according to the nature, condition, or situation of the objects involved, but are nevertheless accomplished within a certain period of time. Time is insignificant and never a difficulty for Nature. It is always at her disposal and represents an unlimited power with which she accomplishes her greatest and smallest tasks.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Arise (162)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Condition (362)  |  Continual (44)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Essential (210)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Involved (90)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Period (200)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Represent (157)  |  Situation (117)  |  Subject (543)  |  Task (152)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  Variable (37)

Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Chamber (7)  |  End (603)  |  Journey (48)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Play (116)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Travel (125)  |  Voyage (13)

One began to hear it said that World War I was the chemists’ war, World War II was the physicists’ war, World War III (may it never come) will be the mathematicians’ war.
Co-author with and Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (1981), 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemist (169)  |  Hear (144)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Physicist (270)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  World War I (3)  |  World War II (9)  |  World War III (4)

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
The Story of My Life (1921), 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Consent (14)  |  Creep (15)  |  Feel (371)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Motivation (28)  |  Soar (23)

One is almost tempted to say... at last I can almost see a bond. But that will never be, for a bond does not really exist at all: it is a most convenient fiction which, as we have seen, is convenient both to experimental and theoretical chemists.
'What is a Chemical Bond?', Coulson Papers, 25, Bodleian Library, Oxford. In Mary-Jo Nye, From Chemical Philosophy to Theoretical Chemistry (1993), 261.
Science quotes on:  |  Bond (46)  |  Both (496)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Last (425)  |  Most (1728)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Will (2350)

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
In Orthodoxy (1908), 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Distant (33)  |  Ego (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Self (268)  |  Star (460)  |  Understand (648)

One must believe that every living thing whatsoever must change insensibly in its organization and in its form... One must therefore never expect to find among living species all those which are found in the fossil state, and yet one may not assume that any species has really been lost or rendered extinct.
Système des Animaux sans Vertébres, (1801) trans. D. R. Newth, in Annals of Science (1952), 5, 253-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Organization (120)  |  Render (96)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whatsoever (41)

One never finds fossil bones bearing no resemblance to human bones. Egyptian mummies, which are at least three thousand years old, show that men were the same then. The same applies to other mummified animals such as cats, dogs, crocodiles, falcons, vultures, oxen, ibises, etc. Species, therefore, do not change by degrees, but emerged after the new world was formed. Nor do we find intermediate species between those of the earlier world and those of today's. For example, there is no intermediate bear between our bear and the very different cave bear. To our knowledge, no spontaneous generation occurs in the present-day world. All organized beings owe their life to their fathers. Thus all records corroborate the globe's modernity. Negative proof: the barbaritY of the human species four thousand years ago. Positive proof: the great revolutions and the floods preserved in the traditions of all peoples.
'Note prese al Corso di Cuvier. Corso di Geologia all'Ateneo nel 1805', quoted in Pietro Corsi, The Age of Lamarck, trans. J. Mandelbaum (1988), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bone (101)  |  Cat (52)  |  Change (639)  |  Crocodile (14)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dog (70)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Falcon (2)  |  Father (113)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flood (52)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Species (11)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Men (20)  |  Mummy (7)  |  Negative (66)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Ox (5)  |  Oxen (8)  |  People (1031)  |  Positive (98)  |  Present (630)  |  Present Day (5)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Proof (304)  |  Record (161)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Same (166)  |  Show (353)  |  Species (435)  |  Spontaneity (7)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Today (321)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Vulture (5)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

One never knows how hard a problem is until it has been solved. You don’t necessarily know that you will succeed if you work harder or longer.
From interview with Neil A. Campbell, in 'Crossing the Boundaries of Science', BioScience (Dec 1986), 36, No. 11, 739.
Science quotes on:  |  Hard (246)  |  Know (1538)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Problem (731)  |  Research (753)  |  Solve (145)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Work Hard (14)

One never knows what remains undiscovered simply because the right equipment is not there at the right time.
As quoted in T.W. Hänsch, 'From (Incr)edible Lasers to New Spectroscopy', collected in William M. Yen and Marc D. Levenson (eds.), Lasers, Spectroscopy and New Ideas: A Tribute to Arthur L. Schawlow (2013), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Equipment (45)  |  Know (1538)  |  Remain (355)  |  Right (473)  |  Time (1911)  |  Undiscovered (15)

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
Letter to her brother (18 Mar 1894 ). In Eve Curie Labouisse and Eve Curie, trans. by Vincent Sheean, Madame Curie (1937), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Notice (81)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Remain (355)  |  See (1094)

One of the first things a boy learns with a chemistry set is that he'll never get another one.
Anonymous
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Boy (100)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Chemistry Set (3)  |  First (1302)  |  Joke (90)  |  Learn (672)  |  Set (400)  |  Thing (1914)

One of the most striking evidences of the reliability of the organic chemist's methods of determining molecular structure is the fact that he has never been able to derive satisfactory structures for supposed molecules which are in fact nonexistent.
Physical Organic Chemistry; Reaction Rates, Equilibria, and Mechanisms (1940),38.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemist (169)  |  Derive (70)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Method (531)  |  Molecular Structure (9)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Reliability (18)  |  Striking (48)  |  Structure (365)

One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will.
In The Sense of Wonder (1956), as condensed in Reader’s Digest (1986), 129, 174.
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Alone (324)  |  Bay (6)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blaze (14)  |  Bright (81)  |  Burn (99)  |  Century (319)  |  Clear (111)  |  Companion (22)  |  Constellation (18)  |  Cottage (4)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Distant (33)  |  Edge (51)  |  Far (158)  |  Flat (34)  |  Flow (89)  |  Give (208)  |  Headland (2)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Low (86)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Millions (17)  |  Misty (6)  |  Night (133)  |  Occur (151)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Planet (402)  |  Probably (50)  |  Reminder (13)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rim (5)  |  River (140)  |  Score (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Shore (25)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Space (523)  |  Spectator (11)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Summer (56)  |  Surround (33)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throng (3)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”
In The Sense of Wonder (1956, 2017), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Eye (440)  |  Know (1538)  |  Open (277)  |  See (1094)  |  Unnoticed (5)  |  Way (1214)

Only a few years ago, it was generally supposed that by crossing two somewhat different species or varieties a mongrel might be produced which might, or more likely might not, surpass its parents. The fact that crossing was only the first step and that selection from the numerous variations secured in the second and a few succeeding generations was the real work of new plant creation had never been appreciated; and to-day its significance is not fully understood either by breeders or even by many scientific investigators along these very lines.
From Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the American Breeders’ Association, at Columbia, Mo. (5-8 January 1909). In 'Another Mode of Species Forming', Popular Science Monthly (Sep 1909), 75, 264-265.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Breeder (4)  |  Creation (350)  |  Cross (20)  |  Different (595)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  First Step (3)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Investigator (71)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Parent (80)  |  Plant (320)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Secure (23)  |  Secured (18)  |  Selection (130)  |  Significance (114)  |  Species (435)  |  Step (234)  |  Succeeding (14)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Variation (93)  |  Variety (138)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Only by strict specialization can the scientific worker become fully conscious, for once and perhaps never again in his lifetime, that he has achieved something that will endure. A really definitive and good accomplishment is today always a specialized accomplishment.
Max Weber
From a Speech (1918) presented at Munich University, published in 1919, and collected in 'Wissenschaft als Beruf', Gessammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1922), 524-525. As given in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright-Mills (translators and eds.), 'Science as a Vocation', Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Achieve (75)  |  Become (821)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Definitive (3)  |  Endure (21)  |  Good (906)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

Only go on working so long as the brain is quite clear. The moment you feel the ideas getting confused leave off and rest, or your penalty will be that you will never learn Mathematics at all!
From letter to Edith Rix with hints for studying (about Mar 1885), in Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Clear (111)  |  Confused (13)  |  Feel (371)  |  Idea (881)  |  Learn (672)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moment (260)  |  Penalty (7)  |  Rest (287)  |  Studying (70)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Our ancestors, when about to build a town or an army post, sacrificed some of the cattle that were wont to feed on the site proposed and examined their livers. If the livers of the first victims were dark-coloured or abnormal, they sacrificed others, to see whether the fault was due to disease or their food. They never began to build defensive works in a place until after they had made many such trials and satisfied themselves that good water and food had made the liver sound and firm. …healthfulness being their chief object.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 4, Sec. 9. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Abnormal (6)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Army (35)  |  Being (1276)  |  Build (211)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Chief (99)  |  Dark (145)  |  Disease (340)  |  Due (143)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fault (58)  |  Feed (31)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Food (213)  |  Good (906)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Liver (22)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  See (1094)  |  Sound (187)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Town (30)  |  Trial (59)  |  Victim (37)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)

Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.
In Adam Bede (1859, 1860), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Dead (65)  |  Forgotten (53)

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Fall (243)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Time (1911)

Our moral theorists seem never content with the normal. Why must it always be a contest between fornication, obesity and laziness, and celibacy, fasting and hard labor?
Science quotes on:  |  Contest (6)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Fasting (3)  |  Hard (246)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laziness (9)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Normal (29)  |  Obesity (5)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)

Our most distinguished “man of science” was the then veteran John Dalton. He was rarely absent from his seat in a warm corner of the room during the meetings of the Literary and Philosophical Society. Though a sober-minded Quaker, he was not devoid of some sense of fun; and there was a tradition amongst us, not only that he had once been a poet, but that, although a bachelor, two manuscript copies were still extant of his verses on the subject of matrimonial felicity; and it is my belief there was foundation for the tradition. The old man was sensitive on the subject of his age. Dining one day ... he was placed between two ladies ... [who] resolved to extract from him some admission on the tender point, but in vain. Though never other than courteous, Dalton foiled all their feminine arts and retained his secret. ... Dalton's quaint and diminutive figure was a strongly individualized one.
In Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist (1896), 73-74.
Science quotes on:  |  Absent (3)  |  Admission (17)  |  Age (509)  |  Art (680)  |  Bachelor (3)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biography (254)  |  Corner (59)  |  Courteous (2)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Devoid (12)  |  Diminutive (3)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Extract (40)  |  Felicity (4)  |  Feminine (4)  |  Figure (162)  |  Foiled (2)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fun (42)  |  Individual (420)  |  Lady (12)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poet (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Quaint (7)  |  Quaker (2)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Retain (57)  |  Room (42)  |  Seat (7)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensitive (15)  |  Society (350)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Two (936)  |  Vain (86)  |  Verse (11)  |  Warm (74)

Our problem is that the climate crisis hatched in our laps at a moment in history when political and social conditions were uniquely hostile to a problem of this nature and magnitude—that moment being the tail end of the go-go ’80s, the blastoff point for the crusade to spread deregulated capitalism around the world. Climate change is a collective problem demanding collective action the likes of which humanity has never actually accomplished. Yet it entered mainstream consciousness in the midst of an ideological war being waged on the very idea of the collective sphere.
In 'The Change Within: The Obstacles We Face Are Not Just External', The Nation (12 May 2014).
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Action (342)  |  Actually (27)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capitalism (12)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Collective (24)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Crusade (6)  |  Demanding (2)  |  Deregulation (2)  |  End (603)  |  Enter (145)  |  History (716)  |  Hostile (8)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideological (2)  |  Lap (9)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mainstream (4)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Point (584)  |  Political (124)  |  Problem (731)  |  Social (261)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spread (86)  |  Spreading (5)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means at our disposal. In this way quantum theory reminds us, as Bohr has put it, of the old wisdom that when searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both players and spectators. It is understandable that in our scientific relation to nature our own activity becomes very important when we have to deal with parts of nature into which we can penetrate only by using the most elaborate tools.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory (1958). In Steve Adams, Frontiers (2000), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Answer (389)  |  Asking (74)  |  Become (821)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Both (496)  |  Consist (223)  |  Deal (192)  |  Drama (24)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Forget (125)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possess (157)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tool (129)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understandable (12)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

Our sun, by the way … may become a white dwarf some day but apparently will never become a supernova.
In The Intelligent Man's Guide to the Physical Sciences (1960, 1968), 56. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 316.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)  |  White Dwarf (2)  |  Will (2350)

Paris ... On this side of the ocean it is difficult to understand the susceptibility of American citizens on the subject and precisely why they should so stubbornly cling to the biblical version. It is said in Genesis the first man came from mud and mud is not anything very clean. In any case if the Darwinian hypothesis should irritate any one it should only be the monkey. The monkey is an innocent animal—a vegetarian by birth. He never placed God on a cross, knows nothing of the art of war, does not practice lynch law and never dreams of assassinating his fellow beings. The day when science definitely recognizes him as the father of the human race the monkey will have no occasion to be proud of his descendants. That is why it must be concluded that the American Association which is prosecuting the teacher of evolution can be no other than the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
[A cynical article in the French press on the Scopes Monkey Trial, whether it will decide “a monkey or Adam was the grandfather of Uncle Sam.”]
Newspaper
Article from a French daily newspaper on the day hearings at the Scopes Monkey Trial began, Paris Soir (13 Jul 1925), quoted in 'French Satirize the Case', New York Times (14 Jul 1925), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Animal (651)  |  Art (680)  |  Association (49)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bible (105)  |  Birth (154)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Clean (52)  |  Clinging (3)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Cynical (3)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Descendant (18)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dream (222)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Father (113)  |  Fellow (88)  |  First (1302)  |  France (29)  |   Genesis (26)  |  God (776)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Lynching (2)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practice (212)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Prosecution (2)  |  Race (278)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Scope (44)  |  Scopes Monkey Trial (9)  |  Side (236)  |  Society (350)  |  Subject (543)  |  Susceptibility (3)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Trial (59)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vegetarian (13)  |  War (233)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

Part of the appeal was that Medawar was not only a Nobel Laureate, but he seemed like a Nobel Laureate; he was everything one thought a Nobel Laureate ought to be. If you have ever wondered why scientists like Popper, try Medawar's exposition. Actually most Popperian scientists have probably never tried reading anything but Medawar's exposition.
'The Art of the Developable', New York Review of Books (Oct 1983). The first two sentences, slightly edited, were reprinted in A Devil's Chaplain (2004), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exposition (16)  |  Sir Peter B. Medawar (57)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nobel Laureate (3)  |  Karl Raimund Popper (48)  |  Reading (136)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Why (491)  |  Wonder (251)

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)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Invention (400)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learner (10)  |  Less (105)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Publius Ovid (15)  |  Particular (80)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proper (150)  |  Solution (282)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Time (1911)

Pauli … asked me to tell him what was happening in America. I told him that Mrs. Wu is trying to measure whether parity is conserved. He answered me: “Mrs. Wu is wasting her time. I would bet you a large sum that parity is conserved.” When this letter came I already knew that parity is violated. I could have sent a telegram to Pauli that the bet was accepted. But I wrote him a letter. He said: “I could never let it out that this is possible. I am glad that we did not actually do the bet because I can risk to lose my reputation, but I cannot risk losing my capital.”
In Discussion after paper presented by Chien-Shiung Wu to the International Conference on the History of Original Ideas and Basic Discoveries, Erice, Sicily (27 Jul-4 Aug 1994), 'Parity Violation' collected in Harvey B. Newman, Thomas Ypsilantis (eds.), History of Original Ideas and Basic Discoveries in Particle Physics (1996), 381.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Already (226)  |  America (143)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bet (13)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Do (1905)  |  Happening (59)  |  Large (398)  |  Letter (117)  |  Lose (165)  |  Measure (241)  |  Money (178)  |  Parity (2)  |  Wolfgang Pauli (16)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Risk (68)  |  Sum (103)  |  Telegram (5)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trying (144)  |  Waste (109)  |  Chien-Shiung Wu (6)

People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live...[We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Cease (81)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Course (413)  |  Curious (95)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Old (499)  |  People (1031)  |  Stand (284)

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Forward (104)  |  Look (584)  |  People (1031)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Will (2350)

People without independence have no business to meddle with science. It should never be linked with lucre.
In George Wilson and Archibald Geikie, Memoir of Edward Forbes F.R.S. (1861), 392.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Money (178)  |  People (1031)

Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise. Without them your theories are vain surmises. But while you are studying, observing, experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things. Do not become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin. Seek obstinately for the laws that govern them.
Translation of a note, 'Bequest of Pavlov to the Academic Youth of his Country', written a few days before his death for a student magazine, The Generation of the Victors. As published in 'Pavlov and the Spirit of Science', Nature (4 Apr 1936), 137, 572.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Become (821)  |  Bird (163)  |  Content (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enable (122)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fly (153)  |  Govern (66)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Observe (179)  |  Obstinately (2)  |  Origin (250)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Recorder (5)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rise (169)  |  Seek (218)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surmise (7)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Vain (86)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)

Perhaps the majority of paleontologists of the present time, who believe in orthogenesis, the irreversibility of evolution and the polyphyletic origin families, will assume that a short molar must keep on getting shorter, that it can never get longer and then again grow relatively shorter and therefore that Propliopithecus with its extremely short third molar and Dryopithecus its long m3 are alike excluded from ancestry of the Gorilla, in which the is a slight retrogression in length of m3. After many years reflection and constant study of the evolution of the vertebrates however, I conclude that 'orthogenesis' should mean solely that structures and races evolve in a certain direction, or toward a certain goal, only until the direction of evolution shifts toward some other goal. I believe that the 'irreversibility of evolution' means only that past changes irreversibly limit and condition future possibilities, and that, as a matter of experience, if an organ is once lost the same (homogenous) organ can be regained, although nature is fertile in substituting imitations. But this not mean, in my judgement, that if one tooth is smaller than its fellows it will in all cases continue to grow smaller.
'Studies on the Evolution of the Primates’, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 1916, 35, 307.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Ancestry (13)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constant (148)  |  Continue (179)  |  Direction (185)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Future (467)  |  Goal (155)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Grow (247)  |  Irreversibility (4)  |  Limit (294)  |  Long (778)  |  Majority (68)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organ (118)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Past (355)  |  Present (630)  |  Race (278)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Retrogression (6)  |  Shift (45)  |  Short (200)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Persons possessing great intellect and a capacity for excelling in the creative arts and also in the sciences are generally likely to have heavier brains than the ordinary individual. Arguing from this we might expect to find a corresponding lightness in the brain of the criminal, but this is not always the case ... Many criminals show not a single anomaly in their physical or mental make-up, while many persons with marked evidences of morphological aberration have never exhibited the criminal tendency.
Every attempt to prove crime to be due to a constitution peculiar only to criminals has failed signally. It is because most criminals are drawn from the ranks of the low, the degraded, the outcast, that investigators were ever deceived into attempting to set up a 'type' of criminal. The social conditions which foster the great majority of crimes are more needful of study and improvement.
From study of known normal brains we have learned that there is a certain range of variation. No two brains are exactly alike, and the greatest source of error in the assertions of Benedict and Lombroso has been the finding of this or that variation in a criminal’s brains, and maintaining such to be characteristic of the 'criminal constitution,' unmindful of the fact that like variations of structure may and do exist in the brains of normal, moral persons.
Address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Philadelphia (28 Dec 1904), as quoted in 'Americans of Future Will Have Best Brains', New York Times (29 Dec 1904), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Aberration (10)  |  Alike (60)  |  Anomaly (11)  |  Art (680)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Brain (281)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Crime (39)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foster (12)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Low (86)  |  Majority (68)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mental (179)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prove (261)  |  Range (104)  |  Rank (69)  |  Set (400)  |  Show (353)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)

Phony psychics like Uri Geller have had particular success in bamboozling scientists with ordinary stage magic, because only scientists are arrogant enough to think that they always observe with rigorous and objective scrutiny, and therefore could never be so fooled–while ordinary mortals know perfectly well that good performers can always find a way to trick people.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arrogant (4)  |  Enough (341)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fool (121)  |  Good (906)  |  Know (1538)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observe (179)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Particular (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Performer (2)  |  Phony (3)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Scrutiny (15)  |  Stage (152)  |  Success (327)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trick (36)  |  Way (1214)

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavour to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. But he certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions. He may also believe in the existence of the ideal limit of knowledge and that it is approached by the human mind. He may call this ideal limit the objective truth.
Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics (1938), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Closed (38)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creation (350)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Face (214)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Increase (225)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Physical (518)  |  Picture (148)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Range (104)  |  Reality (274)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Physical investigation, more than anything besides, helps to teach us the actual value and right use of the Imagination—of that wondrous faculty, which, left to ramble uncontrolled, leads us astray into a wilderness of perplexities and errors, a land of mists and shadows; but which, properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man; the source of poetic genius, the instrument of discovery in Science, without the aid of which Newton would never have invented fluxions, nor Davy have decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would Columbus have found another Continent.
Presidential Address to Anniversary meeting of the Royal Society (30 Nov 1859), Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (1860), 10, 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Aid (101)  |  Alkali (6)  |  America (143)  |  Astray (13)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Become (821)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Continent (79)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fluxion (7)  |  Genius (301)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mist (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Physical (518)  |  Ramble (3)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Right (473)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Teach (299)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Wondrous (22)

Physics is NOT a body of indisputable and immutable Truth; it is a body of well-supported probable opinion only .... Physics can never prove things the way things are proved in mathematics, by eliminating ALL of the alternative possibilities. It is not possible to say what the alternative possibilities are.... Write down a number of 20 figures; if you multiply this by a number of, say, 30 figures, you would arrive at some enormous number (of either 49 or 50 figures). If you were to multiply the 30-figure number by the 20-figure number you would arrive at the same enormous 49- or 50-figure number, and you know this to be true without having to do the multiplying. This is the step you can never take in physics.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 68, 88, 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Figure (162)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Indisputable (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Number (710)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Say (989)  |  Step (234)  |  Support (151)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Write (250)

Physics is very muddled again at the moment; it is much too hard for me anyway, and I wish I were a movie comedian or something like that and had never heard anything about physics.
Letter to R. Kronig (21 May 1925). Quoted in R. Kronig, 'The Turning Point', in M. Fierz and V. F. Weisskopf (eds.), Theoretical Physics in the Twentieth Century. A Memorial Volume to Wolfgang Pauli (1960),as trans. in M. Klein, Letters on Wave Mechanics, x.
Science quotes on:  |  Hard (246)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Moment (260)  |  Movie (21)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Something (718)  |  Wish (216)

Physics tries to discover the pattern of events which controls the phenomena we observe. But we can never know what this pattern means or how it originates; and even if some superior intelligence were to tell us, we should find the explanation unintelligible.
In Physics And Philosophy: the Revolution In Modern Science (1942), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Control (182)  |  Discover (571)  |  Event (222)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Observe (179)  |  Origin (250)  |  Originate (39)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Superior (88)  |  Tell (344)  |  Unintelligible (17)

Poore soule, in this thy flesh what do'st thou know?
Thou know'st thy selfe so little, as thou know'st not.
How thou did'st die, nor how thou wast begot.
Thou neither know'st how thou at first camest in,
Nor how thou took'st the poyson of mans sin.
Nor dost thou, (though thou know'st, that thou art so)
By what way thou art made immortall, know.
Thou art too narrow, wretch, to comprehend
Even thy selfe; yea though thou wouldst but bend
To know thy body. Have not all soules thought
For many ages, that our body'is wrought
Of Ayre, and Fire, and other Elements?
And now they thinke of new ingredients,
And one soule thinkes one, and another way
Another thinkes, and 'tis an even lay.
Knowst thou but how the stone doth enter in
The bladder's Cave, and never breake the skin?
Knowst thou how blood, which to the hart doth flow,
Doth from one ventricle to th'other go?
And for the putrid stuffe, which thou dost spit,
Knowst thou how thy lungs have attracted it?
There are no passages, so that there is
(For aught thou knowst) piercing of substances.
And of those many opinions which men raise
Of Nailes and Haires, dost thou know which to praise?
What hope have we to know our selves, when wee
Know not the least things, which for our use bee?
Of the Progresse of the Soule. The Second Anniversarie, I. 254-280. The Works of John Donne (Wordsworth edition 1994), 196-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Art (680)  |  Aught (6)  |  Bee (44)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Flow (89)  |  Hope (321)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Lung (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Narrow (85)  |  New (1273)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Poem (104)  |  Sin (45)  |  Skin (48)  |  Stone (168)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)  |  Ventricle (7)  |  Way (1214)

Progress is achieved by exchanging our theories for new ones which go further than the old, until we find one based on a larger number of facts. … Theories are only hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Final (121)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Larger (14)  |  Less (105)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Old (499)  |  Progress (492)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Verification (32)

Pure mathematics consists entirely of such asseverations as that, if such and such is a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another propositions is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is of which it is supposed to be true. Both these points would belong to applied mathematics. … If our hypothesis is about anything and not about some one or more particular things, then our deductions constitute mathematics. Thus mathematics may be defined as the the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, not whether what we are saying is true. People who have been puzzled by the beginnings of mathematics will, I hope, find comfort in this definition, and will probably agree that it is accurate.
In 'Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics', International Monthly (1901), 4, 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belong (168)  |  Both (496)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Definition (238)  |  Essential (210)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Subject (543)  |  Talking (76)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

Pure mathematics; may it never be of any use to anyone.
A banquet toast, quoted as “I believe that it was at a banquet of the Red Lions that he proposed the toast…”, in Alexander Macfarlane, 'Henry John Stephen Smith', Lectures on Ten British Mathematicians of the Nineteenth Century (1916), 100.
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Use (771)

Reality is never skin-deep. The true nature of the earth and its full wealth of hidden treasures cannot be argued from the visible rocks, the rocks upon which we live and out of which we make our living. The face of the earth, with its upstanding continents and depressed ocean-deeps, its vast ornament of plateau and mountain-chain, is molded by structure and process in hidden depths.
Science quotes on:  |  Continent (79)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deep Sea (10)  |  Depressed (3)  |  Depth (97)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Geology (240)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Mold (37)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Plateau (8)  |  Process (439)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rock (176)  |  Skin (48)  |  Structure (365)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Vast (188)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wealth (100)

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
A Treatise on Human Nature (1739-40), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1888), book 2, part 3, section 3, 415.
Science quotes on:  |  Obey (46)  |  Office (71)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Reason (766)  |  Slave (40)

Religions, in fact, like castles, sunsets and women, never reach their maximum of beauty until they are touched by decay.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Castle (5)  |  Decay (59)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Reach (286)  |  Religion (369)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Touch (146)  |  Woman (160)

Remsen never wore his hat inside the door for he had much the same respect for his laboratory that most of us have for a church.
Anonymous
Quoting an unnamed former student of Remsen, speaking of his original laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Dalton Hall on Little Ross Street, Baltimore, Maryland. In F.H. Getman The Life of Ira Remsen (1940), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Church (64)  |  Door (94)  |  Hat (9)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Most (1728)  |  Respect (212)  |  Wearing (2)

Reputation. The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil that they never did as well.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 217.
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evil (122)  |  Good (906)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Reputation (33)

Research! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value.
As quoted from author’s conversation with Jowett, in Logan Pearsall Smith, Unforgotten Years (1938, 1939), 186-187.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Mere (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Slight (32)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Researchers, with science as their authority, will be able to cut [animals] up, alive, into small pieces, drop them from a great height to see if they are shattered by the fall, or deprive them of sleep for sixteen days and nights continuously for the purposes of an iniquitous monograph... Animal trust, undeserved faith, when at last will you turn away from us? Shall we never tire of deceiving, betraying, tormenting animals before they cease to trust us?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Animal (651)  |  Authority (99)  |  Betray (8)  |  Cease (81)  |  Continuously (7)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Deceiving (5)  |  Deprive (14)  |  Drop (77)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fall (243)  |  Great (1610)  |  Height (33)  |  Last (425)  |  Monograph (5)  |  Night (133)  |  Piece (39)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Researcher (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Shatter (8)  |  Shattered (8)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Small (489)  |  Tire (7)  |  Torment (18)  |  Trust (72)  |  Turn (454)  |  Undeserved (3)  |  Will (2350)

Revolutions never occur in mathematics.
Tenth Law in 'Ten “Laws” Concerning Patterns of Change in the History of Mathematics', Historia Mathematica (1975), 2, 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Occur (151)  |  Revolution (133)

Run the tape again, and let the tiny twig of Homo sapiens expire in Africa. Other hominids may have stood on the threshold of what we know as human possibilities, but many sensible scenarios would never generate our level of mentality. Run the tape again, and this time Neanderthal perishes in Europe and Homo erectus in Asia (as they did in our world). The sole surviving human stock, Homo erectus in Africa, stumbles along for a while, even prospers, but does not speciate and therefore remains stable. A mutated virus then wipes Homo erectus out, or a change in climate reconverts Africa into inhospitable forest. One little twig on the mammalian branch, a lineage with interesting possibilities that were never realized, joins the vast majority of species in extinction. So what? Most possibilities are never realized, and who will ever know the difference? Arguments of this form lead me to the conclusion that biology's most profound insight into human nature, status, and potential lies in the simple phrase, the embodiment of contingency: Homo sapiens is an entity, not a tendency.
Wonderful Life (1989), 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Argument (145)  |  Biology (232)  |  Branch (155)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Difference (355)  |  Embodiment (9)  |  Entity (37)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Forest (161)  |  Form (976)  |  Hominid (4)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Majority (68)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neanderthal (7)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Potential (75)  |  Profound (105)  |  Prosper (8)  |  Remain (355)  |  Run (158)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sole (50)  |  Species (435)  |  Stable (32)  |  Status (35)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Twig (15)  |  Vast (188)  |  Virus (32)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Scheele, it was said, never forgot anything if it had to do with chemistry. He never forgot the look, the feel, the smell of a substance, or the way it was transformed in chemical reactions, never forgot anything he read, or was told, about the phenomena of chemistry. He seemed indifferent, or inattentive, to most things else, being wholly dedicated to his single passion, chemistry. It was this pure and passionate absorption in phenomena—noticing everything, forgetting nothing—that constituted Scheele's special strength.
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption (13)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Dedicated (19)  |  Dedication (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Feel (371)  |  Look (584)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Passion (121)  |  Passionate (22)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Read (308)  |  Single (365)  |  Smell (29)  |  Special (188)  |  Strength (139)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transform (74)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)

Scholarship, save by accident, is never the measure of a man's power.
Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects: a Series of Popular Lectures (1873), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Power (771)  |  Save (126)  |  Scholarship (22)

Science can be introduced to children well or poorly. If poorly, children can be turned away from science; they can develop a lifelong antipathy; they will be in a far worse condition than if they had never been introduced to science at all.
[Unverified. Please contact Webmaster if you can identify the primary source.]
Science quotes on:  |  Antipathy (2)  |  Children (201)  |  Condition (362)  |  Develop (278)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Lifelong (10)  |  Poor (139)  |  Science Education (16)  |  Turn (454)  |  Well (14)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worse (25)

Science can be thought of as a large pool of knowledge, fed by a steady flow from the tap of basic research. Every now and then the water is dipped out and put to use, but one never knows which part of the water will be needed. This confuses the funding situation for basic science, because usually no specific piece of scientific work can be justified in advance; one cannot know which is going to be decisive. Yet history shows that keeping water flowing into the pool is a very worthwhile enterprise.
In 'Technology Development', Science (1983), 220, 576-580. As quoted and cited in H. Charles Romesburg, Best Research Practices (2009), 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basic Research (15)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fund (19)  |  Funding (20)  |  History (716)  |  Justify (26)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Need (320)  |  Piece (39)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Show (353)  |  Situation (117)  |  Specific (98)  |  Steady (45)  |  Tap (10)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worthwhile (18)

Science can never be a closed book. It is like a tree, ever growing, ever reaching new heights. Occasionally the lower branches, no longer giving nourishment to the tree, slough off. We should not be ashamed to change our methods; rather we should be ashamed never to do so.
Papers of Charles V. Chapin, M.D.: A Review of Public Health Realities (1934), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Change (639)  |  Closed (38)  |  Do (1905)  |  Growing (99)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Progress (492)  |  Tree (269)

Science does not mean an idle resting upon a body of certain knowledge; it means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an end which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but which the intellect can never fully grasp.
In The Philosophy of Physics (1936). Collected in The New Science: 3 Complete Works (1959), 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Continual (44)  |  Development (441)  |  End (603)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Idle (34)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Poetic (7)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rest (287)

Science even more than the Gospel teaches us humility. She cannot look down on anything, she does not know what superiority means, she despises nothing, never lies for the sake of a pose, and conceals nothing out of coquetry. She stops before the facts as an investigator, sometimes as a physician, never as an executioner, and still less with hostility and irony.
My Past and Thoughts: the Memoirs of Alexander Herzen (revised translation 1968, 1982), 639.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Gospel (8)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Humility (31)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lie (370)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Physician (284)  |  Sake (61)  |  Still (614)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Teaching (190)

Science has blown to atoms, as she can rend and rive in the rocks themselves; but in those rocks she has found, and read aloud, the great stone book which is the history of the earth, even when darkness sat upon the face of the deep. Along their craggy sides she has traced the footprints of birds and beasts, whose shapes were never seen by man. From within them she has brought the bones, and pieced together the skeletons, of monsters that would have crushed the noted dragons of the fables at a blow.
Book review of Robert Hunt, Poetry of Science (1848), in the London Examiner (1848). Although uncredited in print, biographers identified his authorship from his original handwritten work. Collected in Charles Dickens and Frederic George Kitton (ed.) Old Lamps for New Ones: And Other Sketches and Essays (1897), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Beast (58)  |  Bird (163)  |  Blow (45)  |  Bone (101)  |  Book (413)  |  Crag (6)  |  Crush (19)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dragon (6)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fable (12)  |  Face (214)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monster (33)  |  Piece (39)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Rock (176)  |  Shape (77)  |  Side (236)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Stone (168)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Tracing (3)

Science has promised us truth. … It has never promised us either peace or happiness.
From the original French, “La science … nous a promis la vérité … ; elle ne nous a jamais promis ni la paix ni le bonheur,” in La Psychologie des Foules, 5. Translated in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), xvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Happiness (126)  |  Peace (116)  |  Promise (72)  |  Truth (1109)

Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith and inconsistent with it. But all science in fact rests on a basis of faith for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws—a thing which can never be demonstrated.
In Tryon Edwards (ed.), A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1891), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Assume (43)  |  Basis (180)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faith (209)  |  Inconsistent (9)  |  Law (913)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Oppose (27)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Rest (287)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Uniformity (38)

Science is always wrong; … Science can never solve one problem without creating ten more problems.
Speech at the Einstein Dinner, Savoy Hotel, London (28 Oct 1930). Reproduced in George Bernard Shaw and Warren Sylvester Smith (ed.), The Religious Speeches of George Bernard Shaw (1963), 83. This is part of a longer quote, comparing science and religion, which begins, “We call the one side…,” which can be found elsewhere on the page of George Bernard Shaw Quotations on this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Create (245)  |  More (2558)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solve (145)  |  Wrong (246)

Science is but a feeble means for motivating life. It enlightens men, but fails to arouse them to deeds of self-sacrifice and devotion. … It dispels ignorance, but it never launched a crusade. It gives aid in the struggle with the hard surroundings of life, but it does not inform us to what end we struggle, or whether the struggle is worth while. … Intelligence can do little more than direct.
As quoted by M.G. Mellon in his retiring Presidential Address to the Winter Meeting of the Indiana Academy of Science at the University of Notre Dame (30 Oct 1942), 'Science, Scientists, and Society', printed in Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science (1943), 52, 15. No source citation given.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Crusade (6)  |  Deed (34)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Direct (228)  |  Directing (5)  |  Dispelling (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightening (3)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failing (5)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Hard (246)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Inform (50)  |  Informing (5)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Launch (21)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Sacrifice (5)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Worth (172)

Science is like society and trade, in resting at bottom upon a basis of faith. There are some things here, too, that we can not prove, otherwise there would be nothing we can prove. Science is busy with the hither-end of things, not the thither-end. It is a mistake to contrast religion and science in this respect, and to think of religion as taking everything for granted, and science as doing only clean work, and having all the loose ends gathered up and tucked in. We never reach the roots of things in science more than in religion.
From 'Walking by Faith', The Pattern in the Mount: And Other Sermons (1885), 49. The sentence “Science is busy with the hither-end of things, not the thither-end” is quoted alone in collections such as James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 382:35.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Clean (52)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Doing (277)  |  End (603)  |  Everything (489)  |  Faith (209)  |  Gather (76)  |  Grant (76)  |  Granted (5)  |  Loose (14)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reach (286)  |  Religion (369)  |  Respect (212)  |  Root (121)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Society (350)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trade (34)  |  Tuck (3)  |  Work (1402)

Science is the study of the admitted laws of existence, which cannot prove a universal negative about whether those laws could ever be suspended by something admittedly above them. It is as if we were to say that a lawyer was so deeply learned in the American Constitution that he knew there could never be a revolution in America..
From 'The Early Bird in History',The Thing: Why I Am Catholic (1929), 207. In Collected Works (1990), Vol. 3, 296.
Science quotes on:  |  Above (7)  |  Admitted (3)  |  Admittedly (2)  |  America (143)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Existence (481)  |  Law (913)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Negative (66)  |  Prove (261)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Study (701)  |  Suspended (5)  |  Universal (198)

Science is the topography of ignorance. From a few elevated points we triangulate vast spaces, inclosing infinite unknown details. We cast the lead, and draw up a little sand from abysses we may never reach with our dredges.
'Border Lines of Knowledge in Some Provinces of Medical Science', an introductory lecture to the Medical Class of Harvard University (6 Nov 1861). In Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1892), 211.
Science quotes on:  |  Cast (69)  |  Detail (150)  |  Draw (140)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Lead (391)  |  Little (717)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)  |  Research (753)  |  Sand (63)  |  Space (523)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vast (188)

Science is wiser than religion: it never tries to do the humanly impossible, like making you love your neighbor like yourself.
Anonymous
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 704.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Love (328)  |  Making (300)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)

Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is just too awful.
Timequake (1997), 105.
Science quotes on:  |  Awful (9)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Condition (6)  |  Situation (117)  |  Truth (1109)

Science never makes an advance until philosophy authorizes it to do so.
Essay on Freud (1937). Quoted in Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne and John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation (1973), 1208.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Authorization (3)  |  Authorize (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Philosophy (409)

Science never saw a ghost, nor does it look for any, but it sees everywhere the traces, and it is itself the agent, of a Universal Intelligence.
(2 Dec 1853). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: VI: December 1, 1853-August 31, 1854 (1906), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Look (584)  |  Saw (160)  |  Science And Philosophy (6)  |  See (1094)  |  Trace (109)  |  Universal (198)

Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning.
Lowell Lecture (Feb 1925), 'The Origins of Modern Science', collected in Science and the Modern World (1925), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Car (75)  |  Care (203)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Justification (52)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

Science seldom renders men amiable; women, never.
Attributed, but not verified. Found with this wording in quote collections at least as early as Notable Thoughts about Women: A Literary Mosaic (1882), 28. This and various later quote collections, almost never give the source. Cited as from Maximes, Réflexions et Pensées Diverses by Alan L. Mackay, A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991), 24, but without identifying the specific page. Webmaster has not be able to identify within that book, when looking for a close match in the original French in the 3rd edition (1819) chapters on Women and on Science. (Other editions were not checked). If you can help improve this citation, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Amiable (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  Render (96)  |  Rendering (6)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Woman (160)

Science will never be able to reduce the value of a sunset to arithmetic. Nor can it reduce friendship or statesmanship to a formula. Laughter and love, pain and loneliness, the challenge of beauty and truth: these will always surpass the scientific mastery of nature.
As President, American Medical Association. From Commencement address at Emory University, Atlanta, 6 Jun 60
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Formula (102)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Love (328)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pain (144)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Statesmanship (2)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Science would not be what it is if there had not been a Galileo, a Newton or a Lavoisier, any more than music would be what it is if Bach, Beethoven and Wagner had never lived. The world as we know it is the product of its geniuses—and there may be evil as well as beneficent genius—and to deny that fact, is to stultify all history, whether it be that of the intellectual or the economic world.
What is Science? (1921), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Bach (7)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beneficent (9)  |  Deny (71)  |  Economic (84)  |  Evil (122)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Genius (301)  |  History (716)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Know (1538)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Product (166)  |  Stultify (5)  |  World (1850)

Science, especially natural and medical science, is always undergoing evolution, and one can never hope to have said the last word upon any branch of it.
From Introduction to Alphonse Laveran and Felix Etienne Pierre Mesnil Trypanosomes and Trypanosomiasis (1904). English edition translated and much enlarged by David Nabarro, (1907), xvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Branch (155)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Hope (321)  |  Last (425)  |  Last Word (10)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Word (650)

Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious—surely never again to set.
In Specimen Days & Collect (1882), 244.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Already (226)  |  Burst (41)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mount (43)  |  Set (400)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surely (101)  |  Testing (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Science, though apparently transformed into pure knowledge, has yet never lost its character of being a craft; and that it is not the knowledge itself which can rightly be called science, but a special way of getting and of using knowledge. Namely, science is the getting of knowledge from experience on the assumption of uniformity in nature, and the use of such knowledge to guide the actions of men.
In 'On The Scientific Basis of Morals', Contemporary Review (Sep 1875), collected in Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays: By the Late William Kingdon Clifford, F.R.S. (1886), 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Called Science (14)  |  Character (259)  |  Craft (11)  |  Experience (494)  |  Guide (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pure (299)  |  Special (188)  |  Transform (74)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)

Scientists do not believe in fundamental and absolute certainties. For the scientist, certainty is never an end, but a search; not the ordering of certainty, but its exploration. For the scientist, certainty represents the highest degree of probability.
Ashley Montagu (ed.), Science and Creationism (1984), Introduction, 7-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Degree (277)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Order (638)  |  Probability (135)  |  Represent (157)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Search (175)

Scientists have been struck by the fact that things that break down virtually never get lost, while things that get lost hardly ever break down.
'Why on Earth Are We There? Because It's Impossible', New York Times (21 Jul 1969), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Down (455)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Lost (34)  |  Object (438)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Thing (1914)

Scientists like myself merely use their gifts to show up that which already exists, and we look small compared to the artists who create works of beauty out of themselves. If a good fairy came and offered me back my youth, asking me which gifts I would rather have, those to make visible a thing which exists but which no man has ever seen before, or the genius needed to create, in a style of architecture never imagined before, the great Town Hall in which we are dining tonight, I might be tempted to choose the latter.
Nobel Banquet Speech (10 Dec 1962).
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Artist (97)  |  Asking (74)  |  Back (395)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Choice (114)  |  Choose (116)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fairy (10)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Myself (211)  |  Offer (142)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Temptation (14)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tonight (9)  |  Town Hall (2)  |  Use (771)  |  Visibility (6)  |  Visible (87)  |  Work (1402)  |  Youth (109)

Several times every day I observed the portions of the polyp with a magnifying glass. On the 4th December, that is to say on the ninth day after having cut the polyp, I seemed in the morning to be able to perceive, on the edges of the anterior end of the second part (the part that had neither head nor arms), three little points arising from those edges. They immediately made me think of the horns that serve as the legs and arms of the polyp. Nevertheless I did not want to decide at once that these were actually arms that were beginning to grow. Throughout the next day I continually observed these points: this excited me extremely, and awaited with impatience the moment when I should know with certainty what they were. At last, on the following day, they were so big that there was no longer any room for doubt that they were actually arms growing at the anterior extremity of this second part. The next day two more arms started to grow out, and a few days later three more. The second part thus had eight of them, and they were all in a short time as long as those of the first part, that is to say as long as those the polyp possessed before it was cut. I then no longer found any difference between the second part and a polyp that had never been cut. I had remarked the same thing about the first part since the day after the operation. When I observed them with the magnifying glass with all the attention of which I was capable, each of the two appeared perceptibly to be a complete polyp, and they performed all the functions that were known to me: they extended, contracted, and walked.
Mémoires, pour servir à l'histoire d'un genre de polyps d'eau douce à bras en forme de cornes (1744), 7-16. Trans. John R. Baker, in Abraham Trembley of Geneva: Scientist and Philosopher 1710-1784 (1952), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Anterior (4)  |  Appeared (4)  |  Arising (22)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Capable (174)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Complete (209)  |  Cut (116)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Edge (51)  |  End (603)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extremity (7)  |  First (1302)  |  Function (235)  |  Glass (94)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Horn (18)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impatience (13)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Leg (35)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnifying (2)  |  Magnifying Glass (3)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Morning (98)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Next (238)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performed (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Polyp (4)  |  Portion (86)  |  Possess (157)  |  Remark (28)  |  Room (42)  |  Say (989)  |  Short (200)  |  Start (237)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)  |  Want (504)

Should a young scientist working with me come to me after two years of such work and ask me what to do next, I would advise him to get out of science. After two years of work, if a man does not know what to do next, he will never make a real scientist.
Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Ask (420)  |  Do (1905)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Next (238)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

Since a given system can never of its own accord go over into another equally probable state but into a more probable one, it is likewise impossible to construct a system of bodies that after traversing various states returns periodically to its original state, that is a perpetual motion machine.
'The Second Law of Thermodynamics', Populäre Schriften, Essay 3. Address to a Formal meeting of the Imperial Academy of Science, 29 May 1886. In Brian McGuinness (ed.), Ludwig Boltzmann: Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems, Selected Writings (1974), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Construct (129)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Equally (129)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Machine (271)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Return (133)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Various (205)

Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. [An infinitely old universe, always evolving may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end.] Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.
Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988),196.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Book (413)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Creatio Ex Nihilo (2)  |  Creation (350)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  End (603)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Method (531)  |  Myth (58)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Old (499)  |  Reconcile (19)  |  Reject (67)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Result (700)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

Since the invention of the microprocessor, the cost of moving a byte of information around has fallen on the order of 10-million-fold. Never before in the human history has any product or service gotten 10 million times cheaper-much less in the course of a couple decades. That’s as if a 747 plane, once at $150 million a piece, could now be bought for about the price of a large pizza.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Buy (21)  |  Cheaper (6)  |  Cost (94)  |  Couple (9)  |  Course (413)  |  Decade (66)  |  Fall (243)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Information (173)  |  Invention (400)  |  Large (398)  |  Less (105)  |  Microprocessor (2)  |  Million (124)  |  Move (223)  |  Order (638)  |  Piece (39)  |  Pizza (2)  |  Plane (22)  |  Price (57)  |  Product (166)  |  Service (110)  |  Time (1911)

Since the princes take the Earth for their own, it’s fair that the philosophers reserve the sky for themselves and rule there, but they should never permit the entry of others.
Conversations on the Plurality of Words (1686), trans. H. A. Hargreaves (1990), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Other (2233)  |  Permit (61)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sky (174)  |  Themselves (433)

Small can be beautiful: an eagle may at time go hungry; a pet canary, never.
Aphorism as given by the fictional character Dezhnev Senior, in Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Small (489)  |  Time (1911)

So is not mathematical analysis then not just a vain game of the mind? To the physicist it can only give a convenient language; but isn’t that a mediocre service, which after all we could have done without; and, it is not even to be feared that this artificial language be a veil, interposed between reality and the physicist’s eye? Far from that, without this language most of the intimate analogies of things would forever have remained unknown to us; and we would never have had knowledge of the internal harmony of the world, which is, as we shall see, the only true objective reality.
From La valeur de la science. In Anton Bovier, Statistical Mechanics of Disordered Systems (2006), 3, giving translation "approximately" in the footnote of the opening epigraph in the original French: “L’analyse mathématique, n’est elle donc qu’un vain jeu d’esprit? Elle ne peut pas donner au physicien qu’un langage commode; n’est-ce pa là un médiocre service, dont on aurait pu se passer à la rigueur; et même n’est il pas à craindre que ce langage artificiel ne soit pas un voile interposé entre la réalité at l’oeil du physicien? Loin de là, sans ce langage, la pluspart des anaologies intimes des choses nous seraient demeurées à jamais inconnues; et nous aurions toujours ignoré l’harmonie interne du monde, qui est, nous le verrons, la seule véritable réalité objective.” Another translation, with a longer quote, beginning “Without this language…”, is on the Henri Poincaré Quotes" page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fear (212)  |  Forever (111)  |  Game (104)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Internal (69)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Objective (96)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Reality (274)  |  Remain (355)  |  See (1094)  |  Service (110)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vain (86)  |  Veil (27)  |  World (1850)

So many people today–and even professional scientists–seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest . A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is–in my opinion–the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.
In unpublished Letter (7 Dec 1944) to R.A. Thornton, Einstein Archive, EA 6-574, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. As quoted and cited in Don A. Howard, 'Albert Einstein as a Philosopher of Science', Physics Today (Dec 2006), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Artisan (9)  |  Background (44)  |  Create (245)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Forest (161)  |  Generation (256)  |  Give (208)  |  Historic (7)  |  Independence (37)  |  Insight (107)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mark (47)  |  Mere (86)  |  Most (1728)  |  Opinion (291)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Professional (77)  |  Real (159)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeker (8)  |  Seem (150)  |  Someone (24)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Today (321)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truth (1109)

So then Gravity may put ye Planets into Motion, but without ye divine Power it could never put them into such a Circulating Motion as they have about ye Sun; & therefore, for this, as well as other Reasons, I am compelled to ascribe ye Frame of this Systeme to an intelligent agent.
Letter to Richard Bently (17 Jan 1693). 189.R.4.47, f. 5A, Trinity College Library, Cambridge.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Circulate (2)  |  Divine (112)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Motion (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Reason (766)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Sun (407)

So why fret and care that the actual version of the destined deed was done by an upper class English gentleman who had circumnavigated the globe as a vigorous youth, lost his dearest daughter and his waning faith at the same time, wrote the greatest treatise ever composed on the taxonomy of barnacles, and eventually grew a white beard, lived as a country squire just south of London, and never again traveled far enough even to cross the English Channel? We care for the same reason that we love okapis, delight in the fossil evidence of trilobites, and mourn the passage of the dodo. We care because the broad events that had to happen, happened to happen in a certain particular way. And something unspeakably holy –I don’t know how else to say this–underlies our discovery and confirmation of the actual details that made our world and also, in realms of contingency, assured the minutiae of its construction in the manner we know, and not in any one of a trillion other ways, nearly all of which would not have included the evolution of a scribe to record the beauty, the cruelty, the fascination, and the mystery.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Assure (16)  |  Beard (8)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Broad (28)  |  Care (203)  |  Certain (557)  |  Channel (23)  |  Class (168)  |  Compose (20)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Country (269)  |  Cross (20)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Deed (34)  |  Delight (111)  |  Destined (42)  |  Detail (150)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dodo (7)  |  English (35)  |  Enough (341)  |  Event (222)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Faith (209)  |  Far (158)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fret (3)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Globe (51)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Holy (35)  |  Include (93)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  London (15)  |  Lose (165)  |  Love (328)  |  Manner (62)  |  Minutiae (7)  |  Mourn (3)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Passage (52)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reason (766)  |  Record (161)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Scribe (3)  |  Something (718)  |  South (39)  |  Taxonomy (19)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Trillion (4)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Underly (3)  |  Unspeakably (3)  |  Upper (4)  |  Version (7)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Wane (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)  |  Youth (109)

Some have supposed that the mosquito is of a devout turn, and never will partake of a meal without first saying grace. The devotions of some men are but a preface to blood-sucking.
In Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Devotion (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Grace (31)  |  Meal (19)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Preface (9)  |  Turn (454)  |  Will (2350)

Some men said the atomic bomb should never have been built; researchers should have stopped working when they had realized that the bomb was feasible. Enrico did not think this would have been a sensible solution. It is no good trying to stop knowledge from going forward. Whatever Nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.
Note: Although attributed as his viewpoint to Enrico Fermi, it is probably not a direct quote by him.
This is the viewpoint of Enrico Fermi, as written in her own words by his wife, Laura Fermi, in Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi (1954), 244. The last sentence is also seen on its own, contracted as: “It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better that knowledge.” Webmaster has therefore flags each of these wordings as “not a direct quote”, with this cautionary note. If you know a primary source of the quote in this wording, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Better (493)  |  Direct (228)  |  Forward (104)  |  Good (906)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Quote (46)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Solution (282)  |  Store (49)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trying (144)  |  Unpleasant (15)  |  Viewpoint (13)  |  Whatever (234)

Some of them wanted to sell me snake oil and I’m not necessarily going to dismiss all of these, as I have never found a rusty snake.
Speech to Alzheimer's Research Trust Conference, Bristol (13 Mar 2008).
Science quotes on:  |  Medicine (392)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Oil (67)  |  Quack (18)  |  Snake (29)  |  Want (504)

Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  People (1031)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)

Some persons have contended that mathematics ought to be taught by making the illustrations obvious to the senses. Nothing can be more absurd or injurious: it ought to be our never-ceasing effort to make people think, not feel.
Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton (1856) 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Contend (8)  |  Effort (243)  |  Feel (371)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Injurious (14)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obvious (128)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Sense (785)  |  Teach (299)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.
Letter (3 Dec 1960) written to David E. Pesonen of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Collected in 'Coda: Wilderness Letter', The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West (1969), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  American (56)  |  Book (413)  |  Case (102)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Clean (52)  |  Comic (5)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Country (269)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dirty (17)  |  Drive (61)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Forest (161)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Last (425)  |  Let (64)  |  Member (42)  |  Noise (40)  |  Pave (8)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Push (66)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Road (71)  |  Silence (62)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Stink (8)  |  Stream (83)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Virgin (11)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoo (9)

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
Dialog by Calvin (fictional character) in syndicated newspaper comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Collected in Scientific Progress Goes “Boink!” (1991), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Contact (66)  |  Elsewhere (10)  |  Exist (458)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Life (1870)  |  Sign (63)  |  Try (296)  |  Universe (900)

Sometimes truth frightens us. And in fact we know that it is sometimes deceptive, that it is a phantom never showing itself for a moment except to ceaselessly flee, that it must be pursued further and ever further without ever being attained. … Yet truth should not be feared, for it alone is beautiful.
As translated by George Bruce Halsted, in 'The Value of Science', Popular Science Monthly (Sep 1906), 69 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Attain (126)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Ceaseless (6)  |  Deceptive (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fear (212)  |  Flee (9)  |  Fright (11)  |  Know (1538)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Phantom (9)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Show (353)  |  Truth (1109)

Speaking about symmetry, look out our window, and you may see a cardinal attacking its reflection in the window. The cardinal is the only bird we have who often does this. If it has a nest nearby, the cardinal thinks there is another cardinal trying to invade its territory. It never realizes it is attacking its own reflection. Cardinals don’t know much about mirror symmetry!
In István Hargittai, 'A Great Communicator of Mathematics and Other Games: A Conversation with Martin Gardner', The Mathematical Intelligencer. (1997), 194(4), 36-40. Quoted in István and Magdolna Hargittai, In Our Own Image (2000), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Nest (26)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reflection (93)  |  See (1094)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Territory (25)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trying (144)  |  Window (59)

Specialists never contribute anything to their specialty; Helmholtz wasn’t an eye-specialist, but a German army doctor who invented the ophthalmoscope one Saturday afternoon when there wasn’t anything else to do. Incidentally, he rewrote whole chapters of physics, so that the physicists only know him as one of their own. Robert Mayer wasn’t a physicist, but another country doctor; and Pasteur, who made bacteriology, was a tanner’s son or a chemist, as you will.
In Fischerisms (1930), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Afternoon (5)  |  Army (35)  |  Bacteriology (5)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Country (269)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Eye (440)  |  German (37)  |  Hermann von Helmholtz (32)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Invented (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Robert Mayer (9)  |  Louis Pasteur (85)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Saturday (11)  |  Son (25)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Specialty (13)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Speed, is that progress? Anyway, why progress? Why not enjoy what one has? Men have never exhausted present pleasures.
Islandia (1942, 1958), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Present (630)  |  Progress (492)  |  Speed (66)  |  Why (491)

Strive for design simplicity. You never have to fix anything you leave out.
In J.S. "Torch" Lewis, 'Lear the Legend', Aviation Week & Space Technology (2 Jul 2001), 155 Supplement, No 1, 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Design (203)  |  Fix (34)  |  Leave (138)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Striving (3)

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
As quoted in Carla Lind, Wright Style (1992), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Architecture (50)  |  Close (77)  |  Fail (191)  |  Love (328)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Study (701)  |  Will (2350)

Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean labor to pluck them.
In The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: V; Excursions and Poems (1906), 307.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Dragon (6)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Golden (47)  |  Guard (19)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Pluck (5)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Sleep (81)

Such is professional jealousy; a scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.
In A Tramp Abroad (1880), 156.
Science quotes on:  |  Himself (461)  |  Jealousy (9)  |  Kindness (14)  |  Profession (108)  |  Professional (77)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Show (353)  |  Start (237)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Will (2350)

Suddenly there was an enormous explosion, like a violent volcano. The nuclear reactions had led to overheating in the underground burial grounds. The explosion poured radioactive dust and materials high up into the sky. It was just the wrong weather for such a tragedy. Strong winds blew the radioactive clouds hundreds of miles away. It was difficult to gauge the extent of the disaster immediately, and no evacuation plan was put into operation right away. Many villages and towns were only ordered to evacuate when the symptoms of radiation sickness were already quite apparent. Tens of thousands of people were affected, hundreds dying, though the real figures have never been made public. The large area, where the accident happened, is still considered dangerous and is closed to the public.
'Two Decades of Dissidence', New Scientist (4 Nov 1976), 72, No. 72, 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Affected (3)  |  Already (226)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Area (33)  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Burial (8)  |  Closed (38)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Consider (428)  |  Considered (12)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Die (94)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Dust (68)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Evacuation (3)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Extent (142)  |  Figure (162)  |  Gauge (2)  |  Ground (222)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Heat (180)  |  High (370)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Large (398)  |  Material (366)  |  Mile (43)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Operation (221)  |  Order (638)  |  People (1031)  |  Plan (122)  |  Public (100)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Real (159)  |  Right (473)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Sky (174)  |  Still (614)  |  Strong (182)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Total (95)  |  Town (30)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Underground (12)  |  Village (13)  |  Violent (17)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Weather (49)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wrong (246)

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
Yet, it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.
Address to the South London Working Men’s College. 'A Liberal Education; and Where to Find It', in David Masson, (ed.), Macmillan’s Magazine (Mar 1868), 17, 369. Also in 'A Liberal Education and Where to Find it' (1868). In Collected Essays (1893), Vol. 3, 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Allowance (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Check (26)  |  Checkmate (2)  |  Chess (27)  |  Chessboard (2)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cost (94)  |  Delight (111)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Disapprobation (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Eye (440)  |  Father (113)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Game (104)  |  Generosity (7)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Haste (6)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ill (12)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Knight (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Loss (117)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Member (42)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Move (223)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pawn (2)  |  Payment (6)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Player (9)  |  Primary (82)  |  Remorse (9)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Son (25)  |  Stake (20)  |  State (505)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Win (53)  |  Winning (19)  |  Woman (160)  |  World (1850)

Suppose the results of a line of study are negative. It might save a lot of otherwise wasted money to know a thing won’t work. But how do you accurately evaluate negative results? ... The power plant in [the recently developed streamline trains] is a Diesel engine of a type which was tried out many [around 25] years ago and found to be a failure. … We didn’t know how to build them. The principle upon which it operated was sound. [Since then much has been] learned in metallurgy [and] the accuracy with which parts can be manufactured
When this type of engine was given another chance it was an immediate success [because now] an accuracy of a quarter of a tenth of a thousandth of an inch [prevents high-pressure oil leaks]. … If we had taken the results of past experience without questioning the reason for the first failure, we would never have had the present light-weight, high-speed Diesel engine which appears to be the spark that will revitalize the railroad business.
'Industrial Prospecting', an address to the Founder Societies of Engineers (20 May 1935). In National Research Council, Reprint and Circular Series of the National Research Council (1933), No. 107, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Build (211)  |  Business (156)  |  Chance (244)  |  Develop (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engine (99)  |  Experience (494)  |  Failure (176)  |  First (1302)  |  High (370)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leak (4)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Lot (151)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Metallurgy (3)  |  Money (178)  |  Negative (66)  |  Oil (67)  |  Past (355)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Principle (530)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Save (126)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spark (32)  |  Speed (66)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Train (118)  |  Type (171)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Surely it must be admitted that if the conceptions of Physics are presented to the beginner in erroneous language, there is a danger that in many instances these conceptions will never be properly acquired. And is not accurate language as cheap as inaccurate?
A paper read at the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching (19 Jan 1889), 'The Vices of our Scientific Education', in Nature (6 Jun 1889), 40, 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Beginner (11)  |  Cheap (13)  |  Conception (160)  |  Danger (127)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Inaccuracy (4)  |  Language (308)  |  Must (1525)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Present (630)  |  Proper (150)  |  Surely (101)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Will (2350)

Sylvester was incapable of reading mathematics in a purely receptive way. Apparently a subject either fired in his brain a train of active and restless thought, or it would not retain his attention at all. To a man of such a temperament, it would have been peculiarly helpful to live in an atmosphere in which his human associations would have supplied the stimulus which he could not find in mere reading. The great modern work in the theory of functions and in allied disciplines, he never became acquainted with …
What would have been the effect if, in the prime of his powers, he had been surrounded by the influences which prevail in Berlin or in Gottingen? It may be confidently taken for granted that he would have done splendid work in those domains of analysis, which have furnished the laurels of the great mathematicians of Germany and France in the second half of the present century.
In Address delivered at a memorial meeting at the Johns Hopkins University (2 May 1897), published in Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (Jun 1897), 303. Also in Johns Hopkins University Circulars, 16 (1897), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaint (11)  |  Active (80)  |  Ally (7)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Association (49)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Attention (196)  |  Become (821)  |  Berlin (10)  |  Brain (281)  |  Century (319)  |  Confidently (2)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Domain (72)  |  Effect (414)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  France (29)  |  Function (235)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Germany (16)  |  Gottingen (2)  |  Grant (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Half (63)  |  Helpful (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Influence (231)  |  Laurel (2)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mere (86)  |  Modern (402)  |  Peculiarly (4)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Prime (11)  |  Purely (111)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Receptive (5)  |  Restless (13)  |  Retain (57)  |  Second (66)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Subject (543)  |  Supply (100)  |  Surround (33)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Temperament (18)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

Tait once urged the advantage of Quaternions on Cayley (who never used them), saying: “You know Quaternions are just like a pocket-map.” “That may be,” replied Cayley, “but you’ve got to take it out of your pocket, and unfold it, before it’s of any use.” And he dismissed the subject with a smile.
In Life of Lord Kelvin (1910), 1137.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Dismiss (12)  |  Know (1538)  |  Map (50)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Pocket (11)  |  Quaternion (9)  |  Reply (58)  |  Say (989)  |  Smile (34)  |  Subject (543)  |  Peter Guthrie Tait (11)  |  Unfold (15)  |  Urge (17)  |  Use (771)

That ability to impart knowledge … what does it consist of? … a deep belief in the interest and importance of the thing taught, a concern about it amounting to a sort of passion. A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it—this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy. That is because there is enthusiasm in him, and because enthusiasm is almost as contagious as fear or the barber’s itch. An enthusiast is willing to go to any trouble to impart the glad news bubbling within him. He thinks that it is important and valuable for to know; given the slightest glow of interest in a pupil to start with, he will fan that glow to a flame. No hollow formalism cripples him and slows him down. He drags his best pupils along as fast as they can go, and he is so full of the thing that he never tires of expounding its elements to the dullest.
This passion, so unordered and yet so potent, explains the capacity for teaching that one frequently observes in scientific men of high attainments in their specialties—for example, Huxley, Ostwald, Karl Ludwig, Virchow, Billroth, Jowett, William G. Sumner, Halsted and Osler—men who knew nothing whatever about the so-called science of pedagogy, and would have derided its alleged principles if they had heard them stated.
In Prejudices: third series (1922), 241-2.
For a longer excerpt, see H.L. Mencken on Teaching, Enthusiasm and Pedagogy.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Barber (5)  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Theodor Billroth (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Called Science (14)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contagion (9)  |  Deep (241)  |  Derision (8)  |  Down (455)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eat (108)  |  Element (322)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Enthusiast (9)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fan (3)  |  Fear (212)  |  Flame (44)  |  Formalism (7)  |  Glow (15)  |  William Stewart Halsted (2)  |  High (370)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Impart (24)  |  Imparting (6)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Itch (11)  |   Benjamin Jowett (11)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observe (179)  |  Sir William Osler (48)  |  Ostwald_Carl (2)  |  Passion (121)  |  Pedagogy (2)  |  Potent (15)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Slow (108)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Specialty (13)  |  Start (237)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Value (393)  |  Rudolf Virchow (50)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)

That hemisphere of the moon which faces us is better known than the earth itself; its vast desert plains have been surveyed to within a few acres; its mountains and craters have been measured to within a few yards; while on the earth's surface there are 30,000,000 square kilometres (sixty times the extent of France), upon which the foot of man has never trod, which the eye of man has never seen.
In 'Mars, by the Latest Observations', Popular Science (Dec 1873), 4, 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Crater (8)  |  Desert (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extent (142)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Plain (34)  |  Square (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  Survey (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tread (17)  |  Vast (188)

That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.
[A skeptical comment on the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project, to President Harry S. Truman in 1945.]
Memoirs: Year of Decisions (1955), Vol. 1, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Expert (67)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Fool (121)  |  President (36)  |  Project (77)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Harry S. Truman (5)  |  Will (2350)

That one must do some work seriously and must be independent and not merely amuse oneself in life—this our mother [Marie Curie] has told us always, but never that science was the only career worth following.
As quoted by Mary Margaret McBride in A Long Way From Missouri (1959), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Amusement (37)  |  Career (86)  |  Do (1905)  |  Independence (37)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mother (116)  |  Must (1525)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Serious (98)  |  Tell (344)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

That was the turning point. It was as though the signal was there, 'This is the disease you're going to have to work against.' I never really stopped to think about anything else. It was that sudden.
Autobiography, Nobel Foundation
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Biography (254)  |  Disease (340)  |  Point (584)  |  Signal (29)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Think (1122)  |  Turning Point (8)  |  Work (1402)

That which enters the mind through reason can be corrected. That which is admitted through faith, hardly ever.
In Charlas de Café: pensamientos, anécdotas y confidencias (1920). (Café Chats: Thoughts, Anecdotes and Confidences). As translated in Peter McDonald (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations (2004), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Admitted (3)  |  Enter (145)  |  Ever (4)  |  Faith (209)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Reason (766)  |  Through (846)

That which the sciences can add to the privileges of the human race has never been more marked than at the present moment. … The air seems to become as accessible to him as the waters…. The name of Montgolfier, the names of those hardy navigators of the new element, will live through time; but who among us, on seeing these superb experiments, has not felt his soul elevated, his ideas expanded, his mind enlarged?
As quoted by François Arago, in a biography of Bailly, read to the Academy of Sciences (26 Feb 1844), as translated by William Henry Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant, published in 'Bailly', Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859), Vol. 1, 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessibility (3)  |  Accessible (27)  |  Air (366)  |  Become (821)  |  Element (322)  |  Expand (56)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hardy (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Idea (881)  |  Live (650)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Navigator (8)  |  New (1273)  |  Present (630)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Race (278)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Soul (235)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

The “big bang” … set matter whirling in a maelstrom of activity that would never cease. The forces of order sought to bring this process under control, to tame chance. The result was not the rigid order of a crystal but the order of life. From the outset, chance has been the essential counterpart of the ordering forces.
As co-author with Ruthild Winkler, trans by Robert and Rita Kimber, in The Laws of the Game: How the Principles of Nature Govern Chance (1981, 1993), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Bang (29)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Cease (81)  |  Chance (244)  |  Control (182)  |  Counterpart (11)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Essential (210)  |  Force (497)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maelstrom (2)  |  Matter (821)  |  Order (638)  |  Process (439)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Set (400)

The 'stream' we call science always flows forward; sometimes reactionary beavers block its flow, but the stream is never defeated by this; it accumulates, gathers strength; its waters get over the barrage and continue on their course. The advancement of science is the advancement of God, for science is nothing but human intelligence, and human intelligence is the most valuable treasure God has bequeathed us.
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Barrage (2)  |  Beaver (8)  |  Call (781)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Flow (89)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gather (76)  |  God (776)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reactionary (3)  |  Stream (83)  |  Strength (139)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Water (503)

The actions of bad men produce only temporary evil, the actions of good men only temporary good ; and eventually the good and the evil altogether subside, are neutralized by subsequent generations, absorbed by the incessant movements of future ages. But the discoveries of great men never leave us; they are immortal; they contain those eternal truths which survive the shock of empires, outlive the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay of successive religions.
In History of Civilization in England (1858), Vol. 1, 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Action (342)  |  Age (509)  |  Bad (185)  |  Creed (28)  |  Decay (59)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Empire (17)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Evil (122)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Incessant (9)  |  Leave (138)  |  Movement (162)  |  Outlive (4)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rival (20)  |  Shock (38)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Subside (5)  |  Successive (73)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survive (87)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Witness (57)

The advantage which science gained by Gauss’ long-lingering method of publication is this: What he put into print is as true and important today as when first published; his publications are statutes, superior to other human statutes in this, that nowhere and never has a single error been detected in them. This justifies and makes intelligible the pride with which Gauss said in the evening of his life of the first larger work of his youth: “The Disquisitiones arithmeticae belong to history.”
In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1878, 8, 435. As cited and translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Belong (168)  |  Detect (45)  |  Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (2)  |  Error (339)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Important (229)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Justify (26)  |  Larger (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lingering (2)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Method (531)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pride (84)  |  Print (20)  |  Publication (102)  |  Publish (42)  |  Single (365)  |  Statute (4)  |  Superior (88)  |  Today (321)  |  True (239)  |  Work (1402)  |  Youth (109)

The air of caricature never fails to show itself in the products of reason applied relentlessly and without correction. The observation of clinical facts would seem to be a pursuit of the physician as harmless as it is indispensable. [But] it seemed irresistibly rational to certain minds that diseases should be as fully classifiable as are beetles and butterflies. This doctrine … bore perhaps its richest fruit in the hands of Boissier de Sauvauges. In his Nosologia Methodica published in 1768 … this Linnaeus of the bedside grouped diseases into ten classes, 295 genera, and 2400 species.
In 'General Ideas in Medicine', The Lloyd Roberts lecture at House of the Royal Society of Medicine (30 Sep 1935), British Medical Journal (5 Oct 1935), 2, 609. In The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 151.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Bedside (3)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Caricature (6)  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Clinical (18)  |  Correction (42)  |  Disease (340)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Genus (27)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Carolus Linnaeus (36)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physician (284)  |  Product (166)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Rational (95)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Reason (766)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Richness (15)  |  Seem (150)  |  Show (353)  |  Species (435)

The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing.
Personal Knowledge (1958), 208.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Amount (153)  |  Authority (99)  |  Availability (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Belief (615)  |  Case (102)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Directly (25)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Few (15)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hold (96)  |  Justification (52)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Majority (68)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  People (1031)  |  Place (192)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Secondhand (6)  |  Standing (11)  |  Through (846)  |  Trust (72)  |  Widely (9)

The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method—more daring than anything that the history of philosophy records—of Lobachevsky and Riemann, Gauss and Sylvester. Indeed, mathematics, the indispensable tool of the sciences, defying the senses to follow its splendid flights, is demonstrating today, as it never has been demonstrated before, the supremacy of the pure reason.
In 'What Knowledge is of Most Worth?', Presidential address to the National Education Association, Denver, Colorado (9 Jul 1895). In Educational Review (Sep 1895), 10, 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Daring (17)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Expand (56)  |  Flight (101)  |  Follow (389)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Geometry (271)  |  History (716)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (8)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reason (766)  |  Record (161)  |  Bernhard Riemann (7)  |  Science And Mathematics (10)  |  Sense (785)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Supremacy (4)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Today (321)  |  Tool (129)

The ancients thought as clearly as we do, had greater skills in the arts and in architecture, but they had never learned the use of the great instrument which has given man control over nature—experiment.
Address at the opening of the new Pathological Institute of the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow (4 Oct 1911). Printed in 'The Pathological Institute of a General Hospital', Glasgow Medical Journal (1911), 76, 327.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Art (680)  |  Control (182)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Skill (116)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)

The apex of mathematical achievement occurs when two or more fields which were thought to be entirely unrelated turn out to be closely intertwined. Mathematicians have never decided whether they should feel excited or upset by such events.
In 'A Mathematician's Gossip', Indiscrete Thoughts (2008), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Apex (6)  |  Closely (12)  |  Decide (50)  |  Event (222)  |  Excited (8)  |  Feel (371)  |  Field (378)  |  Intertwined (2)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Occur (151)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Unrelated (6)  |  Upset (18)

The Astronomer’s Drinking Song
Astronomers! What can avail
Those who calumniate us;
Experiment can never fail
With such an apparatus…
A Budget of Paradoxes
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fail (191)  |  Poem (104)  |  Song (41)

The Atoms or Particles, which now constitute Heaven and Earth, being once separate and diffused in the Mundane Space, like the supposed Chaos, could never without a God by their Mechanical affections have convened into this present Frame of Things or any other like it.
A Confutation of Atheism from the Origin and Frame of the World. (1693), Part II, 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Earth (1076)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Present (630)  |  Separate (151)  |  Space (523)  |  Thing (1914)

The average English author [of mathematical texts] leaves one under the impression that he has made a bargain with his reader to put before him the truth, the greater part of the truth, and nothing but the truth; and that if he has put the facts of his subject into his book, however difficult it may be to unearth them, he has fulfilled his contract with his reader. This is a very much mistaken view, because effective teaching requires a great deal more than a bare recitation of facts, even if these are duly set forth in logical order—as in English books they often are not. The probable difficulties which will occur to the student, the objections which the intelligent student will naturally and necessarily raise to some statement of fact or theory—these things our authors seldom or never notice, and yet a recognition and anticipation of them by the author would be often of priceless value to the student. Again, a touch of humour (strange as the contention may seem) in mathematical works is not only possible with perfect propriety, but very helpful; and I could give instances of this even from the pure mathematics of Salmon and the physics of Clerk Maxwell.
In Perry, Teaching of Mathematics (1902), 59-61.
Science quotes on:  |  Anticipation (18)  |  Author (175)  |  Average (89)  |  Bare (33)  |  Bargain (5)  |  Book (413)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Contention (14)  |  Contract (11)  |  Deal (192)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Effective (68)  |  English (35)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Forth (14)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Helpful (16)  |  Humour (116)  |  Impression (118)  |  Instance (33)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Leave (138)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Naturally (11)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Objection (34)  |  Occur (151)  |  Often (109)  |  Order (638)  |  Part (235)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Priceless (9)  |  Probable (24)  |  Propriety (6)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Raise (38)  |  Reader (42)  |  Recitation (2)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Require (229)  |  Salmon (7)  |  Seem (150)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Set (400)  |  Statement (148)  |  Strange (160)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Text (16)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unearth (2)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The average gambler will say “The player who stakes his whole fortune on a single play is a fool, and the science of mathematics can not prove him to be otherwise.” The reply is obvious: “The science of mathematics never attempts the impossible, it merely shows that other players are greater fools.”
Concluding remarks to his mathematical proof, with certain assumptions, that the best betting strategy for “Gambler’s Ruin” would be to always make his largest stake on his first play. In 'Gambler’s Ruin', Annals of Mathematics (Jul 1909), 2nd Series, 10, No. 4, 189. This is also seen, without primary source, quoted as “It is true that a man who does this is a fool. I have only proved that a man who does anything else is an even bigger fool,” in Harold Eves, Return to Mathematical Circles (1988), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Average (89)  |  Fool (121)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Gambler (7)  |  Greater (288)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Play (116)  |  Player (9)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reply (58)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Single (365)  |  Stake (20)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

The basic symptoms which occur in pneumonia and which are never lacking are acute fever, sticking pain in the side, short rapid breaths, serrated pulse, and cough, mostly with sputum.
As quoted in Robert Taylor, White Coat Tales: Medicine's Heroes, Heritage, and Misadventures (2010), 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Acute (8)  |  Basic (144)  |  Breath (61)  |  Cough (8)  |  Fever (34)  |  Occur (151)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pneumonia (8)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Short (200)  |  Side (236)  |  Sticking (3)  |  Symptom (38)

The belief that mathematics, because it is abstract, because it is static and cold and gray, is detached from life, is a mistaken belief. Mathematics, even in its purest and most abstract estate, is not detached from life. It is just the ideal handling of the problems of life, as sculpture may idealize a human figure or as poetry or painting may idealize a figure or a scene. Mathematics is precisely the ideal handling of the problems of life, and the central ideas of the science, the great concepts about which its stately doctrines have been built up, are precisely the chief ideas with which life must always deal and which, as it tumbles and rolls about them through time and space, give it its interests and problems, and its order and rationality. That such is the case a few indications will suffice to show. The mathematical concepts of constant and variable are represented familiarly in life by the notions of fixedness and change. The concept of equation or that of an equational system, imposing restriction upon variability, is matched in life by the concept of natural and spiritual law, giving order to what were else chaotic change and providing partial freedom in lieu of none at all. What is known in mathematics under the name of limit is everywhere present in life in the guise of some ideal, some excellence high-dwelling among the rocks, an “ever flying perfect” as Emerson calls it, unto which we may approximate nearer and nearer, but which we can never quite attain, save in aspiration. The supreme concept of functionality finds its correlate in life in the all-pervasive sense of interdependence and mutual determination among the elements of the world. What is known in mathematics as transformation—that is, lawful transfer of attention, serving to match in orderly fashion the things of one system with those of another—is conceived in life as a process of transmutation by which, in the flux of the world, the content of the present has come out of the past and in its turn, in ceasing to be, gives birth to its successor, as the boy is father to the man and as things, in general, become what they are not. The mathematical concept of invariance and that of infinitude, especially the imposing doctrines that explain their meanings and bear their names—What are they but mathematicizations of that which has ever been the chief of life’s hopes and dreams, of that which has ever been the object of its deepest passion and of its dominant enterprise, I mean the finding of the worth that abides, the finding of permanence in the midst of change, and the discovery of a presence, in what has seemed to be a finite world, of being that is infinite? It is needless further to multiply examples of a correlation that is so abounding and complete as indeed to suggest a doubt whether it be juster to view mathematics as the abstract idealization of life than to regard life as the concrete realization of mathematics.
In 'The Humanization of Teaching of Mathematics', Science, New Series, 35, 645-46.
Science quotes on:  |  Abide (12)  |  Abound (17)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attention (196)  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boy (100)  |  Build (211)  |  Call (781)  |  Case (102)  |  Cease (81)  |  Central (81)  |  Change (639)  |  Chaotic (2)  |  Chief (99)  |  Cold (115)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Constant (148)  |  Content (75)  |  Correlate (7)  |  Correlation (19)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detach (5)  |  Determination (80)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Dominant (26)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dream (222)  |  Element (322)  |  Ralph Waldo Emerson (161)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Equation (138)  |  Especially (31)  |  Estate (5)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Explain (334)  |  Far (158)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Father (113)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finite (60)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Flux (21)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Functionality (2)  |  General (521)  |  Give (208)  |  Gray (9)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guise (6)  |  Handle (29)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Idealization (3)  |  Impose (22)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Indication (33)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinitude (3)  |  Interdependence (4)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invariance (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Lawful (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Match (30)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meanings (5)  |  Midst (8)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Needless (4)  |  Notion (120)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Painting (46)  |  Partial (10)  |  Passion (121)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Pervasive (6)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Presence (63)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Provide (79)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Realization (44)  |  Regard (312)  |  Represent (157)  |  Restriction (14)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roll (41)  |  Save (126)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sculpture (12)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serve (64)  |  Serving (15)  |  Show (353)  |  Space (523)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Stately (12)  |  Static (9)  |  Successor (16)  |  Suffice (7)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Supreme (73)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Transfer (21)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Tumble (3)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unto (8)  |  Variability (5)  |  Variable (37)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

The Big Idea that had been developed in the seventeenth century ... is now known as the scientific method. It says that the way to proceed when investigating how the world works is to first carry out experiments and/or make observations of the natural world. Then, develop hypotheses to explain these observations, and (crucially) use the hypothesis to make predictions about the future outcome of future experiments and/or observations. After comparing the results of those new observations with the predictions of the hypotheses, discard those hypotheses which make false predictions, and retain (at least, for the time being) any hypothesis that makes accurate predictions, elevating it to the status of a theory. Note that a theory can never be proved right. The best that can be said is that it has passed all the tests applied so far.
In The Fellowship: the Story of a Revolution (2005), 275.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Carry (130)  |  Century (319)  |  Compare (76)  |  Crucial (10)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discard (32)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  False (105)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Known (453)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Pass (241)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Retain (57)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Status (35)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

The book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages,—leaf after leaf,—never re-turning one. One leaf she lays down, a floor of granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand ages, and a measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and mud: vegetable forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoophyte, trilobium, fish; then, saurians,—rude forms, in which she has only blocked her future statue, concealing under these unwieldy monsters the fine type of her coming king. The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, and man is born. But when a race has lived its term, it comes no more again.
From 'Fate', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 6: The Conduct of Life (1860), 15. This paragraph is the prose version of his poem, 'Song of Nature'.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Bed (25)  |  Birth (154)  |  Block (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Book Of Fate (2)  |  Book Of Nature (12)  |  Coal (64)  |  Coming (114)  |  Concealing (2)  |  Cool (15)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Face (214)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fine (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Floor (21)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Granite (8)  |  King (39)  |  Layer (41)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Monster (33)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Page (35)  |  Planet (402)  |  Race (278)  |  Returning (2)  |  Rude (6)  |  Saurian (2)  |  Slate (6)  |  Statue (17)  |  Term (357)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Turn (454)  |  Type (171)  |  Unwieldy (2)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Zoophyte (5)

The brain can be developed just the same as the muscles can be developed, if one will only take the pains to train the mind to think. Why do so many men never amount to anything? Because they don't think!
As quoted from an interview by B.C. Forbes in The American Magazine (Jan 1921), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Brain (281)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Pain (144)  |  Think (1122)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head-mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one.
Man on His Nature (1940), 225.
Science quotes on:  |  Abiding (3)  |  Become (821)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Dance (35)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Enchantment (9)  |  Enter (145)  |  Flash (49)  |  Loom (20)  |  Mass (160)  |  Meaningful (19)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Return (133)  |  Shuttle (3)  |  Waking (17)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weave (21)

The cell never acts; it reacts.
Generelle Morphology (1866).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Cell (146)

The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the slightest allowance for ignorance.
From an address to the South London Working Men’s College (4 Jan 1868), 'A Liberal Education, and Where to Find It'. Printed in David Masson, (ed.), Macmillan’s Magazine (Mar 1868), 17, 369. Also collected in Chap. 3, 'The Physical Basis of Life', Select Works of Thomas H. Huxley (1886), 497.
Science quotes on:  |  Allowance (6)  |  Chess (27)  |  Chessboard (2)  |  Cost (94)  |  Fair (16)  |  Game (104)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Just (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Patient (209)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Play (116)  |  Player (9)  |  Rule (307)  |  Side (236)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

The commissioners of the treasury moved the king, for the relief of his estate, to disafforest some forests of his, explaining themselves of such forests as lay out of the way, not near any of the king’s houses, nor in the course of his progress; whereof he should never have use nor pleasure. “Why,” saith the king, “do you think that Solomon had use and pleasure of all his three hundred concubines?”
In 'A Collection of Apophthegms, New and Old' (1625). As given in Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political: A New Edition, With the Latin Quotations Translated (1813), No. 9, 262. King James I was named in the preceding Apophthegm No. 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Commissioner (2)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Course (413)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Estate (5)  |  Forest (161)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  King (39)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Progress (492)  |  Relief (30)  |  Saving (20)  |  King Solomon (2)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Treasury (3)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)

The Constitution never sanctioned the patenting of gadgets. Patents serve a higher end—the advance of science.
Concurring in Great A. & P. Teas Co.. V. Supermarket Equip. Corp. 340 U.S. 147, 155 (1950). In Eugene C. Gerhart, Quote it Completely! (1998), 802.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Constitution (78)  |  The Constitution of the United States (7)  |  End (603)  |  Patent (34)  |  Progress (492)  |  Sanction (8)

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals, never to the age.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 422:12.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Due (143)  |  Individual (420)  |  Men Of Science (147)

The difficulties connected with my criterion of demarcation (D) are important, but must not be exaggerated. It is vague, since it is a methodological rule, and since the demarcation between science and nonscience is vague. But it is more than sharp enough to make a distinction between many physical theories on the one hand, and metaphysical theories, such as psychoanalysis, or Marxism (in its present form), on the other. This is, of course, one of my main theses; and nobody who has not understood it can be said to have understood my theory.
The situation with Marxism is, incidentally, very different from that with psychoanalysis. Marxism was once a scientific theory: it predicted that capitalism would lead to increasing misery and, through a more or less mild revolution, to socialism; it predicted that this would happen first in the technically highest developed countries; and it predicted that the technical evolution of the 'means of production' would lead to social, political, and ideological developments, rather than the other way round.
But the (so-called) socialist revolution came first in one of the technically backward countries. And instead of the means of production producing a new ideology, it was Lenin's and Stalin's ideology that Russia must push forward with its industrialization ('Socialism is dictatorship of the proletariat plus electrification') which promoted the new development of the means of production.
Thus one might say that Marxism was once a science, but one which was refuted by some of the facts which happened to clash with its predictions (I have here mentioned just a few of these facts).
However, Marxism is no longer a science; for it broke the methodological rule that we must accept falsification, and it immunized itself against the most blatant refutations of its predictions. Ever since then, it can be described only as nonscience—as a metaphysical dream, if you like, married to a cruel reality.
Psychoanalysis is a very different case. It is an interesting psychological metaphysics (and no doubt there is some truth in it, as there is so often in metaphysical ideas), but it never was a science. There may be lots of people who are Freudian or Adlerian cases: Freud himself was clearly a Freudian case, and Adler an Adlerian case. But what prevents their theories from being scientific in the sense here described is, very simply, that they do not exclude any physically possible human behaviour. Whatever anybody may do is, in principle, explicable in Freudian or Adlerian terms. (Adler's break with Freud was more Adlerian than Freudian, but Freud never looked on it as a refutation of his theory.)
The point is very clear. Neither Freud nor Adler excludes any particular person's acting in any particular way, whatever the outward circumstances. Whether a man sacrificed his life to rescue a drowning, child (a case of sublimation) or whether he murdered the child by drowning him (a case of repression) could not possibly be predicted or excluded by Freud's theory; the theory was compatible with everything that could happen—even without any special immunization treatment.
Thus while Marxism became non-scientific by its adoption of an immunizing strategy, psychoanalysis was immune to start with, and remained so. In contrast, most physical theories are pretty free of immunizing tactics and highly falsifiable to start with. As a rule, they exclude an infinity of conceivable possibilities.
'The Problem of Demarcation' (1974). Collected in David Miller (ed.) Popper Selections (1985), 127-128.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Alfred Adler (3)  |  Against (332)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blatant (4)  |  Break (109)  |  Call (781)  |  Capitalism (12)  |  Child (333)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Connect (126)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Course (413)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dream (222)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Falsification (11)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Forward (104)  |  Free (239)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Immunization (3)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marxism (3)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mention (84)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Methodology (14)  |  Mild (7)  |  Misery (31)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Non-Science (2)  |  Non-Scientific (7)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plus (43)  |  Point (584)  |  Political (124)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Principle (530)  |  Production (190)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Push (66)  |  Reality (274)  |  Refutation (13)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Sense (785)  |  Situation (117)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Special (188)  |  Start (237)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understood (155)  |  Vague (50)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)

The discovery of the conic sections, attributed to Plato, first threw open the higher species of form to the contemplation of geometers. But for this discovery, which was probably regarded in Plato’s tune and long after him, as the unprofitable amusement of a speculative brain, the whole course of practical philosophy of the present day, of the science of astronomy, of the theory of projectiles, of the art of navigation, might have run in a different channel; and the greatest discovery that has ever been made in the history of the world, the law of universal gravitation, with its innumerable direct and indirect consequences and applications to every department of human research and industry, might never to this hour have been elicited.
In 'A Probationary Lecture on Geometry, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Amusement (37)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Brain (281)  |  Channel (23)  |  Conic Section (8)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Course (413)  |  Department (93)  |  Different (595)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Elicit (2)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Industry (159)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Universal Gravitation (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Open (277)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Practical (225)  |  Present (630)  |  Present Day (5)  |  Probably (50)  |  Projectile (3)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  Run (158)  |  Species (435)  |  Speculative (12)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Throw (45)  |  Tune (20)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unprofitable (7)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

The doctor is the servant and the interpreter of nature. Whatever he thinks or does, if he follows not in nature’s footsteps he will never be able to control her.
De Praxi Medica (1696), Introduction.
Science quotes on:  |  Control (182)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Follow (389)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physician (284)  |  Servant (40)  |  Think (1122)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

The dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for. … I’m not blaming the Dodo but he was a mess. He had an ugly face with a large hooked beak, a tail in the wrong place, wings too small … and a very prominent stomach.
In 'The Dodo', How to Become Extinct (1941), 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Beak (5)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Blame (31)  |  Chance (244)  |  Dodo (7)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Face (214)  |  Good (906)  |  Hook (7)  |  Invented (4)  |  Large (398)  |  Mess (14)  |  Place (192)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Small (489)  |  Sole (50)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Tail (21)  |  Ugly (14)  |  Wing (79)  |  Wrong (246)

The dog [in Pavlov’s experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.
Personality: A Psychological Interpretation(1938), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Association (49)  |  Become (821)  |  Bell (35)  |  Complex (202)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dog (70)  |  Edible (7)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (18)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Phobia (3)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Shock (38)  |  Single (365)  |  System (545)  |  Whenever (81)

The double horror of two Japanese city names [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] grew for me into another kind of double horror; an estranging awareness of what the United States was capable of, the country that five years before had given me its citizenship; a nauseating terror at the direction the natural sciences were going. Never far from an apocalyptic vision of the world, I saw the end of the essence of mankind an end brought nearer, or even made, possible, by the profession to which I belonged. In my view, all natural sciences were as one; and if one science could no longer plead innocence, none could.
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Belong (168)  |  Capable (174)  |  City (87)  |  Country (269)  |  Direction (185)  |  End (603)  |  Essence (85)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Horror (15)  |  Innocence (13)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nagasaki (3)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profession (108)  |  Saw (160)  |  State (505)  |  Terror (32)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The earth holds a silver treasure, cupped between ocean bed and tenting sky. Forever the heavens spend it, in the showers that refresh our temperate lands, the torrents that sluice the tropics. Every suckling root absorbs it, the very soil drains it down; the rivers run unceasing to the sea, the mountains yield it endlessly… Yet none is lost; in vast convection our water is returned, from soil to sky, and sky to soil, and back gain, to fall as pure as blessing. There was never less; there could never be more. A mighty mercy on which life depends, for all its glittering shifts, water is constant.
In A Cup of Sky (1950), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Back (395)  |  Bed (25)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Constant (148)  |  Convection (3)  |  Cup (7)  |  Depend (238)  |  Down (455)  |  Drain (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endlessly (4)  |  Fall (243)  |  Forever (111)  |  Gain (146)  |  Glittering (2)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hold (96)  |  Land (131)  |  Less (105)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lost (34)  |  Mercy (12)  |  Mighty (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pure (299)  |  Refresh (5)  |  Return (133)  |  River (140)  |  Root (121)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shift (45)  |  Shower (7)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sluice (2)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spend (97)  |  Suckling (3)  |  Torrent (5)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Tropic (2)  |  Unceasing (3)  |  Vast (188)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Cycle (5)  |  Yield (86)

The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from space.
As quoted in Kevin W. Kelly, The Home Planet (1988), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Alone (324)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blue (63)  |  Defend (32)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Holy (35)  |  Home (184)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Must (1525)  |  Relic (8)  |  Round (26)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Word (650)

The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place. All through the long history of Earth it has been an area of unrest where waves have broken heavily against the land, where the tides have pressed forward over the continents, receded, and then returned. For no two successive days is the shore line precisely the same. Not only do the tides advance and retreat in their eternal rhythms, but the level of the sea itself is never at rest. It rises or falls as the glaciers melt or grow, as the floor of the deep ocean basins shifts under its increasing load of sediments, or as the Earth’s crust along the continental margins warps up or down in adjustment to strain and tension. Today a little more land may belong to the sea, tomorrow a little less. Always the edge of the sea remains an elusive and indefinable boundary.
Opening paragraph in The Edge of the Sea (1955), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Adjustment (21)  |  Advance (298)  |  Against (332)  |  Area (33)  |  Basin (2)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Belong (168)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Break (109)  |  Broken (56)  |  Continent (79)  |  Continental (2)  |  Crust (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Edge (51)  |  Elusive (8)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fall (243)  |  Floor (21)  |  Forward (104)  |  Glacier (17)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heavily (14)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Earth (2)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indefinable (5)  |  Land (131)  |  Less (105)  |  Level (69)  |  Line (100)  |  Little (717)  |  Load (12)  |  Long (778)  |  Margin (6)  |  Melt (16)  |  More (2558)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Place (192)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Press (21)  |  Recede (11)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rest (287)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Return (133)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Rise (169)  |  Same (166)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sediment (9)  |  Shift (45)  |  Shore (25)  |  Strain (13)  |  Strange (160)  |  Successive (73)  |  Tension (24)  |  Through (846)  |  Tide (37)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Two (936)  |  Unrest (2)  |  Warp (7)  |  Wave (112)

The eminent scientist who once said we all behave like human beings obviously never drove a car.
Anonymous
In E.C. McKenzie, 14,000 Quips and Quotes for Speakers, Writers, Editors, Preachers, and Teachers (1990), 350.
Science quotes on:  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Car (75)  |  Drive (61)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Scientist (881)

The enthusiasm of Sylvester for his own work, which manifests itself here as always, indicates one of his characteristic qualities: a high degree of subjectivity in his productions and publications. Sylvester was so fully possessed by the matter which for the time being engaged his attention, that it appeared to him and was designated by him as the summit of all that is important, remarkable and full of future promise. It would excite his phantasy and power of imagination in even a greater measure than his power of reflection, so much so that he could never marshal the ability to master his subject-matter, much less to present it in an orderly manner.
Considering that he was also somewhat of a poet, it will be easier to overlook the poetic flights which pervade his writing, often bombastic, sometimes furnishing apt illustrations; more damaging is the complete lack of form and orderliness of his publications and their sketchlike character, … which must be accredited at least as much to lack of objectivity as to a superfluity of ideas. Again, the text is permeated with associated emotional expressions, bizarre utterances and paradoxes and is everywhere accompanied by notes, which constitute an essential part of Sylvester’s method of presentation, embodying relations, whether proximate or remote, which momentarily suggested themselves. These notes, full of inspiration and occasional flashes of genius, are the more stimulating owing to their incompleteness. But none of his works manifest a desire to penetrate the subject from all sides and to allow it to mature; each mere surmise, conceptions which arose during publication, immature thoughts and even errors were ushered into publicity at the moment of their inception, with utmost carelessness, and always with complete unfamiliarity of the literature of the subject. Nowhere is there the least trace of self-criticism. No one can be expected to read the treatises entire, for in the form in which they are available they fail to give a clear view of the matter under contemplation.
Sylvester’s was not a harmoniously gifted or well-balanced mind, but rather an instinctively active and creative mind, free from egotism. His reasoning moved in generalizations, was frequently influenced by analysis and at times was guided even by mystical numerical relations. His reasoning consists less frequently of pure intelligible conclusions than of inductions, or rather conjectures incited by individual observations and verifications. In this he was guided by an algebraic sense, developed through long occupation with processes of forms, and this led him luckily to general fundamental truths which in some instances remain veiled. His lack of system is here offset by the advantage of freedom from purely mechanical logical activity.
The exponents of his essential characteristics are an intuitive talent and a faculty of invention to which we owe a series of ideas of lasting value and bearing the germs of fruitful methods. To no one more fittingly than to Sylvester can be applied one of the mottos of the Philosophic Magazine:
“Admiratio generat quaestionem, quaestio investigationem investigatio inventionem.”
In Mathematische Annalen (1898), 50, 155-160. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 176-178.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Active (80)  |  Activity (218)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Applied (176)  |  Attention (196)  |  Available (80)  |  Being (1276)  |  Carelessness (7)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conception (160)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Creative (144)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Degree (277)  |  Desire (212)  |  Develop (278)  |  Easier (53)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Expect (203)  |  Exponent (6)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fail (191)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Genius (301)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  High (370)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inception (3)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Individual (420)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lack (127)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mature (17)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Owe (71)  |  Owing (39)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Production (190)  |  Promise (72)  |  Proximate (4)  |  Publication (102)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purely (111)  |  Read (308)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Side (236)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subject-Matter (8)  |  Summit (27)  |  Surmise (7)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  System (545)  |  Talent (99)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unfamiliarity (5)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Value (393)  |  Veil (27)  |  Verification (32)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

The equation of animal and vegetable life is too complicated a problem for human intelligence to solve, and we can never know how wide a circle of disturbance we produce in the harmonies of nature when we throw the smallest pebble into the ocean of organic life.
Man and Nature, (1864), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Circle (117)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Equation (138)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Life (2)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Wide (97)

The equations of dynamics completely express the laws of the historical method as applied to matter, but the application of these equations implies a perfect knowledge of all the data. But the smallest portion of matter which we can subject to experiment consists of millions of molecules, not one of which ever becomes individually sensible to us. We cannot, therefore, ascertain the actual motion of anyone of these molecules; so that we are obliged to abandon the strict historical method, and to adopt the statistical method of dealing with large groups of molecules … Thus molecular science teaches us that our experiments can never give us anything more than statistical information, and that no law derived from them can pretend to absolute precision. But when we pass from the contemplation of our experiments to that of the molecules themselves, we leave a world of chance and change, and enter a region where everything is certain and immutable.
'Molecules' (1873). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 374.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Actual (118)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chance (244)  |  Change (639)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Data (162)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equation (138)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Express (192)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Portion (86)  |  Precision (72)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  World (1850)

The essential unity of ecclesiastical and secular institutions was lost during the 19th century, to the point of senseless hostility. Yet there was never any doubt as to the striving for culture. No one doubted the sacredness of the goal. It was the approach that was disputed.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  Approach (112)  |  Century (319)  |  Culture (157)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ecclesiastical (3)  |  Essential (210)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Institution (73)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nineteenth (5)  |  Point (584)  |  Secular (11)  |  Senseless (4)  |  Strive (53)  |  Unity (81)

The experiences are so innumerable and varied, that the journey appears to be interminable and the Destination is ever out of sight. But the wonder of it is, when at last you reach your Destination you find that you had never travelled at all! It was a journey from here to Here.
In 'A Journey Without Journeying', The Everything and the Nothing (1963), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Destination (16)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Interminable (3)  |  Journey (48)  |  Last (425)  |  Reach (286)  |  Sight (135)  |  Travel (125)  |  Vary (27)  |  Wonder (251)

The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will never understand what he finds.
Attributed. Also seen as, “He who does not know what he is looking for will not lay hold of what he has found when he gets it.” If you know a primary source, perhaps in the original French, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Looking (191)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

The fact is the physical chemists never use their eyes and are most lamentably lacking in chemical culture. It is essential to cast out from our midst, root and branch, this physical element and return to our laboratories.
'Ionomania in Extremis', Chemistry and Industry (1936), 14, 917.
Science quotes on:  |  Branch (155)  |  Cast (69)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Culture (157)  |  Element (322)  |  Essential (210)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physical (518)  |  Research (753)  |  Return (133)  |  Root (121)  |  Use (771)

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true science. He who knows it not, and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead. We all had this priceless talent when we were young. But as time goes by, many of us lose it. The true scientist never loses the faculty of amazement. It is the essence of his being.
Newsweek (31 Mar 1958).
Science quotes on:  |  Amazement (19)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Death (406)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Essence (85)  |  Experience (494)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fair (16)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lose (165)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Priceless (9)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stand (284)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  True Science (25)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Young (253)

The faith of scientists in the power and truth of mathematics is so implicit that their work has gradually become less and less observation, and more and more calculation. The promiscuous collection and tabulation of data have given way to a process of assigning possible meanings, merely supposed real entities, to mathematical terms, working out the logical results, and then staging certain crucial experiments to check the hypothesis against the actual empirical results. But the facts which are accepted by virtue of these tests are not actually observed at all. With the advance of mathematical technique in physics, the tangible results of experiment have become less and less spectacular; on the other hand, their significance has grown in inverse proportion. The men in the laboratory have departed so far from the old forms of experimentation—typified by Galileo's weights and Franklin's kite—that they cannot be said to observe the actual objects of their curiosity at all; instead, they are watching index needles, revolving drums, and sensitive plates. No psychology of 'association' of sense-experiences can relate these data to the objects they signify, for in most cases the objects have never been experienced. Observation has become almost entirely indirect; and readings take the place of genuine witness.
Philosophy in a New Key; A Study in Inverse the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (1942), 19-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Actual (118)  |  Advance (298)  |  Against (332)  |  Association (49)  |  Become (821)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certain (557)  |  Collection (68)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Data (162)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Drum (8)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Form (976)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Implicit (12)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Merely (315)  |  Meter (9)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Process (439)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Significance (114)  |  Signify (17)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Tabulation (2)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Technique (84)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Test (221)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Witness (57)  |  Work (1402)

The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a “hypothesis,” but the word “hypothesis,” though euphonioous, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word “guess.” If Darwin had advanced his views as a guess they would not have survived for a year, but they have floated for half a century, buoyed up by the inflated word “hypothesis.” When it is understood that “hypothesis” means “guess,” people will inspect it more carefully before accepting it.
'God and Evolution', New York Times (26 Feb 1922), 84. Rebuttals were printed a few days later from Henry Fairfield Osborn and Edwin Grant Conklin.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Century (319)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Float (31)  |  Guess (67)  |  High (370)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Objection (34)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  People (1031)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Survival (105)  |  Synonym (2)  |  Understood (155)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

The first two rules of science are: 1. The truth at any price including the price of your life. 2. Look at things right under your nose as if you’ve never seen them before, then proceed from there.
In The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates (2012), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  First (1302)  |  Include (93)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Nose (14)  |  Price (57)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Right (473)  |  Rule (307)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

The following general conclusions are drawn from the propositions stated above, and known facts with reference to the mechanics of animal and vegetable bodies:—
There is at present in the material world a universal tendency to the dissipation of mechanical energy.
Any restoration of mechanical energy, without more than an equivalent of dissipation, is impossible in inanimate material processes, and is probably never effected by means of organized matter, either endowed with vegetable life, or subjected to the will of an animated creature.
Within a finite period of time past the earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation of man as at present constituted, unless operations have been, or are to be performed, which are impossible under the laws to which the known operations going on at present in the material world are subject.
In 'On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1852, 3, 141-142. In Mathematical and Physical Papers (1882-1911), Vol. 1, 513-514.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Finite (60)  |  General (521)  |  Habitation (7)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Past (355)  |  Perform (123)  |  Period (200)  |  Present (630)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universal (198)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The genius of Laplace was a perfect sledge hammer in bursting purely mathematical obstacles; but, like that useful instrument, it gave neither finish nor beauty to the results. In truth, in truism if the reader please, Laplace was neither Lagrange nor Euler, as every student is made to feel. The second is power and symmetry, the third power and simplicity; the first is power without either symmetry or simplicity. But, nevertheless, Laplace never attempted investigation of a subject without leaving upon it the marks of difficulties conquered: sometimes clumsily, sometimes indirectly, always without minuteness of design or arrangement of detail; but still, his end is obtained and the difficulty is conquered.
In 'Review of “Théorie Analytique des Probabilites” par M. le Marquis de Laplace, 3eme edition. Paris. 1820', Dublin Review (1837), 2, 348.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Clumsiness (2)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Design (203)  |  Detail (150)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  End (603)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Feel (371)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Genius (301)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minuteness (8)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Please (68)  |  Power (771)  |  Purely (111)  |  Result (700)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Sledge Hammer (3)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Useful (260)

The goal of science is clear—it is nothing short of the complete interpretation of the universe. But the goal is an ideal one—it marks the direction in which we move and strive, but never the point we shall actually reach.
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Complete (209)  |  Direction (185)  |  Goal (155)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Move (223)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)  |  Short (200)  |  Strive (53)  |  Universe (900)

The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world.
The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870), 553.
Science quotes on:  |  Beach (23)  |  Boy (100)  |  Car (75)  |  College (71)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Europe (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Greek (109)  |  High (370)  |  Latin (44)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Other (2233)  |  Shell (69)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Student (317)  |  World (1850)

The great question that has never been answered and which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'
Freud once said to Marie Bonaparte.
Quoted in Ernest Jones (ed.), Sigmund Freud: Life and Work (1955), Vol. 2, 468.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Great (1610)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Soul (235)  |  Want (504)  |  Woman (160)  |  Year (963)

The greatest marvel is not in the individual. It is in the succession, in the renewal and in the duration of the species that Nature would seem quite inconceivable. This power of producing its likeness that resides in animals and plants, this form of unity, always subsisting and appearing eternal, this procreative virtue which is perpetually expressed without ever being destroyed, is for us a mystery which, it seems, we will never be able to fathom.
'Histoire des Animaux', Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, avec la Description du Cabinet du Roi (1749), Vol. 2, 3. Trans. Phillip R. Sloan.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Express (192)  |  Fathom (15)  |  Form (976)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Individual (420)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Renewal (4)  |  Reside (25)  |  Species (435)  |  Succession (80)  |  Unity (81)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Will (2350)

The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.
In Exploratory Data Analysis (1977), vi. Cited in epigraph, Chandrika Kamath, Scientific Data Mining: A Practical Perspective (2009), 209 .
Science quotes on:  |  Expect (203)  |  Force (497)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Notice (81)  |  Picture (148)  |  See (1094)  |  Value (393)

The highest object at which the natural sciences are constrained to aim, but which they will never reach, is the determination of the forces which are present in nature, and of the state of matter at any given moment—in one word, the reduction of all the phenomena of nature to mechanics.
In Über das Ziel der Naturwissenschaften (1865), 9. As translated in John Bernhard Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1882), 18. From the original German, “Das höchste Ziel, welches die Naturwissenschaften zu erstreben haben, ist die Verwirklichung der eben gemachten Voraussetzung, also die Ermittelung der Kräfte, welche in der Natur vorhanden sind, und des Zustandes, in dem die Materie in einem Augenblicke sich befindet, mit einem Worte, die Zurückführung aller Naturerscheinungen auf die Mechanik.”
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Determination (80)  |  Force (497)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Moment (260)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Present (630)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reduction (52)  |  State (505)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
In Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  America (143)  |  Country (269)  |  Ease (40)  |  Feel (371)  |  History (716)  |  Largely (14)  |  Leave (138)  |  People (1031)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Want (504)

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Fill (67)  |  Goal (155)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Joy (117)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Shine (49)  |  Truth (1109)

The importance of group theory was emphasized very recently when some physicists using group theory predicted the existence of a particle that had never been observed before, and described the properties it should have. Later experiments proved that this particle really exists and has those properties.
Groups in the New Mathematics (1967), 7. Quoted in Rosemary Schmalz, Out of the Mouths of Mathematicians: A Quotation Book for Philomaths (1993), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Group Theory (5)  |  Importance (299)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Predict (86)  |  Property (177)  |  Theory (1015)

The individual within the collective is never, or hardly ever, conscious of the prevailing thought style, which almost always exerts an absolutely compulsive force upon his thinking and with which it is not possible to be at variance.
Genesis and the Development of a Scientific Fact (1935), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Exert (40)  |  Force (497)  |  Individual (420)  |  Possible (560)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Variance (12)

The industry of artificers maketh some small improvement of things invented; and chance sometimes in experimenting maketh us to stumble upon somewhat which is new; but all the disputation of the learned never brought to light one effect of nature before unknown.
In The Works of Francis Bacon (1740), Vol. 1, 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificer (5)  |  Chance (244)  |  Effect (414)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Industry (159)  |  Invention (400)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Small (489)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unknown (195)

The inherent unpredictability of future scientific developments—the fact that no secure inference can be drawn from one state of science to another—has important implications for the issue of the limits of science. It means that present-day science cannot speak for future science: it is in principle impossible to make any secure inferences from the substance of science at one time about its substance at a significantly different time. The prospect of future scientific revolutions can never be precluded. We cannot say with unblinking confidence what sorts of resources and conceptions the science of the future will or will not use. Given that it is effectively impossible to predict the details of what future science will accomplish, it is no less impossible to predict in detail what future science will not accomplish. We can never confidently put this or that range of issues outside “the limits of science”, because we cannot discern the shape and substance of future science with sufficient clarity to be able to say with any assurance what it can and cannot do. Any attempt to set “limits” to science—any advance specification of what science can and cannot do by way of handling problems and solving questions—is destined to come to grief.
The Limits of Science (1984), 102-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Advance (298)  |  Assurance (17)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Conception (160)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Destined (42)  |  Detail (150)  |  Development (441)  |  Different (595)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Future (467)  |  Grief (20)  |  Handling (7)  |  Implication (25)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inference (45)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Issue (46)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Outside (141)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Question (649)  |  Range (104)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Security (51)  |  Set (400)  |  Shape (77)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Specification (7)  |  State (505)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unpredictability (7)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

The investigation of causal relations between economic phenomena presents many problems of peculiar difficulty, and offers many opportunities for fallacious conclusions. Since the statistician can seldom or never make experiments for himself, he has to accept the data of daily experience, and discuss as best he can the relations of a whole group of changes; he cannot, like the physicist, narrow down the issue to the effect of one variation at a time. The problems of statistics are in this sense far more complex than the problems of physics.
Udny Yule
In 'On the Theory of Correlation', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Dec 1897), 60, 812, as cited in Stephen M. Stigler, The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900 (1986), 348.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Best (467)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Daily (91)  |  Data (162)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Down (455)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fallacious (13)  |  Himself (461)  |  Investigation (250)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Offer (142)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Relation (166)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Sense (785)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Whole (756)

The key to success for Sony, and to everything in business, science and technology for that matter, is never to follow the others.
Founder of Sony, quoted in Fortune (24 Feb 1992). In Julia Vitullo-Martin and J. Robert Moskin, The Executive's Book of Quotations (2002), 271.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Everything (489)  |  Follow (389)  |  Matter (821)  |  Other (2233)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Success (327)  |  Technology (281)

The land is the only living thing. Men are merely mortals.… The land is a mother that never dies.
Anonymous
Maori Polynesian saying. As quoted in Jean Hobbs, Hawaii: A Pageant of the Soil (1935), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Death (406)  |  Environment (239)  |  Land (131)  |  Living (492)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Mother (116)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Thing (1914)

The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician. At the heart of things science finds only a mad, never-ending quadrille of Mock Turtle Waves and Gryphon Particles. For a moment the waves and particles dance in grotesque, inconceivably complex patterns capable of reflecting on their own absurdity.
In 'Introduction', The Annotated Alice (1974), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Appear (122)  |  Book (413)  |  Capable (174)  |  Complex (202)  |  Dance (35)  |  Find (1014)  |  Grotesque (6)  |  Gryphon (2)  |  Heart (243)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Inconceivable (13)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mad (54)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Mock Turtle (2)  |  Moment (260)  |  Never-Ending (3)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Particle (200)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Tale (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  View (496)  |  Wave (112)

The laws of nature are the rules according to which the effects are produced; but there must be a cause which operates according to these rules. The laws of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.
'Essay I: On Active Power In General: Chapter 6: On the Efficient Causes of the Phenomena of Nature', Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1785), Chap. 6, 47.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Building (158)  |  Cause (561)  |  Effect (414)  |  House (143)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Operation (221)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Rule (307)  |  Ship (69)

The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities—that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future—will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Akin (5)  |  Ball (64)  |  Become (821)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Blur (8)  |  Bright (81)  |  Bring (95)  |  Cash (2)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clock (51)  |  Company (63)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dance (35)  |  Dose (17)  |  Drift (14)  |  Effortless (3)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Experience (494)  |  Far (158)  |  Future (467)  |  Generate (16)  |  Giddy (3)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hate (68)  |  Heady (2)  |  Investment (15)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Leave (138)  |  Likely (36)  |  Line (100)  |  Market (23)  |  Midnight (12)  |  Minute (129)  |  Miss (51)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Normally (2)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Overstay (2)  |  Participant (6)  |  Party (19)  |  People (1031)  |  Plan (122)  |  Problem (731)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Recently (3)  |  Relative (42)  |  Room (42)  |  Second (66)  |  Sedate (2)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Separate (151)  |  Single (365)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Still (614)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Valuation (4)  |  Will (2350)

The long-range trend toward federal regulation, which found its beginnings in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Act of 1890, which was quickened by a large number of measures in the Progressive era, and which has found its consummation in our time, was thus at first the response of a predominantly individualistic public to the uncontrolled and starkly original collectivism of big business. In America the growth of the national state and its regulative power has never been accepted with complacency by any large part of the middle-class public, which has not relaxed its suspicion of authority, and which even now gives repeated evidence of its intense dislike of statism. In our time this growth has been possible only under the stress of great national emergencies, domestic or military, and even then only in the face of continuous resistance from a substantial part of the public. In the Progressive era it was possible only because of widespread and urgent fear of business consolidation and private business authority. Since it has become common in recent years for ideologists of the extreme right to portray the growth of statism as the result of a sinister conspiracy of collectivists inspired by foreign ideologies, it is perhaps worth emphasizing that the first important steps toward the modern organization of society were taken by arch-individualists—the tycoons of the Gilded Age—and that the primitive beginning of modern statism was largely the work of men who were trying to save what they could of the eminently native Yankee values of individualism and enterprise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Arch (12)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Big Business (2)  |  Business (156)  |  Class (168)  |  Collectivism (2)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Consolidation (4)  |  Conspiracy (6)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Dislike (16)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Emergency (10)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Face (214)  |  Fear (212)  |  Federal (6)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Gilded (3)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Important (229)  |  Individualism (3)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Intense (22)  |  Large (398)  |  Largely (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Range (3)  |  Measure (241)  |  Middle-Class (2)  |  Military (45)  |  Modern (402)  |  National (29)  |  Native (41)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Original (61)  |  Part (235)  |  Portray (6)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Predominantly (4)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Private (29)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Public (100)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Range (104)  |  Recent (78)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Relax (3)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Response (56)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Save (126)  |  Sinister (8)  |  Society (350)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Stress (22)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toward (45)  |  Trend (23)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncontrolled (2)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Value (393)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)  |  Yankee (2)  |  Year (963)

The majority of mathematical truths now possessed by us presuppose the intellectual toil of many centuries. A mathematician, therefore, who wishes today to acquire a thorough understanding of modern research in this department, must think over again in quickened tempo the mathematical labors of several centuries. This constant dependence of new truths on old ones stamps mathematics as a science of uncommon exclusiveness and renders it generally impossible to lay open to uninitiated readers a speedy path to the apprehension of the higher mathematical truths. For this reason, too, the theories and results of mathematics are rarely adapted for popular presentation … This same inaccessibility of mathematics, although it secures for it a lofty and aristocratic place among the sciences, also renders it odious to those who have never learned it, and who dread the great labor involved in acquiring an understanding of the questions of modern mathematics. Neither in the languages nor in the natural sciences are the investigations and results so closely interdependent as to make it impossible to acquaint the uninitiated student with single branches or with particular results of these sciences, without causing him to go through a long course of preliminary study.
In Mathematical Essays and Recreations (1898), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Branch (155)  |  Century (319)  |  Constant (148)  |  Course (413)  |  Department (93)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Dread (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Involved (90)  |  Labor (200)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Long (778)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  New (1273)  |  Odious (3)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Path (159)  |  Popular (34)  |  Possess (157)  |  Preliminary (6)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reason (766)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Single (365)  |  Speedy (2)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Tempo (3)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  Toil (29)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Uninitiated (2)

The man of true genius never lives before his time, he never undertakes impossibilities, and always embarks on his enterprise at the suitable place and period. Though he may catch a glimpse of the coming light as it gilds the mountain top long before it reaches the eyes of his contemporaries, and he may hazard a prediction as to the future, he acts with the present.
Closing Address (19 Mar 1858) at the Exhibition of the Metropolitan Mechanics' Institute, of Washington. Published as a pamphlet by the M.M. Institute (1853). Collected in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Coming (114)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Embark (7)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Eye (440)  |  Future (467)  |  Genius (301)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Period (200)  |  Place (192)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Suitability (11)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  True (239)  |  Undertake (35)

The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 98. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 2, Chap. 2, 105. The original French text is, “Les foules n’ont jamais eu soif de vérités. Devant les évidences qui leur déplaisent, elles se detournent, preferant déifier l’erreur, si l’erreur les séduit. Qui sait les illusionner est aisément leur maître; qui tente de les désillusionner est toujours leur victime.”
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Mass (160)  |  Master (182)  |  Politics (122)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thirst (11)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Victim (37)  |  Whoever (42)

The mathematic, then, is an art. As such it has its styles and style periods. It is not, as the layman and the philosopher (who is in this matter a layman too) imagine, substantially unalterable, but subject like every art to unnoticed changes form epoch to epoch. The development of the great arts ought never to be treated without an (assuredly not unprofitable) side-glance at contemporary mathematics.
In Oswald Spengler and Charles Francis Atkinson (trans.), The Decline of the West (1926), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Assured (4)  |  Change (639)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Development (441)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Form (976)  |  Glance (36)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Layman (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Art (8)  |  Matter (821)  |  Notice (81)  |  Period (200)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Side (236)  |  Style (24)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Treat (38)  |  Unalterable (7)  |  Unprofitable (7)

The mathematician of to-day admits that he can neither square the circle, duplicate the cube or trisect the angle. May not our mechanicians, in like manner, be ultimately forced to admit that aerial flight is one of that great class of problems with which men can never cope… I do not claim that this is a necessary conclusion from any past experience. But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention.
[Written following Samuel Pierpoint Langley's failed attempt to launch his flying machine from a catapult device mounted on a barge in Oct 1903. The Wright Brother's success came on 17 Dec 1903.]
'The Outlook for the Flying Machine'. The Independent: A Weekly Magazine (22 Oct 1903), 2509.
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Aviation (8)  |  Brother (47)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Class (168)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Cube (14)  |  Device (71)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Duplicate (9)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fail (191)  |  Flight (101)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kind (564)  |  Launch (21)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mount (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Past (355)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Square (73)  |  Success (327)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimately (56)

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)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Miracle (85)  |  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 Microbe is so very small,
You cannot make him out at all.
But many sanguine people hope
To see him down a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots
On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us they must be so ...
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about!
In More Beasts for Worse Children (1897), 47-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Curious (95)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Green (65)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Joint (31)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lot (151)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Pattern (116)  |  People (1031)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Separate (151)  |  Small (489)  |  Stand (284)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Tongue (44)

The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap
As recollected from a visit some months earlier, and quoted in William Miller, 'Old Man’s Advice to Youth: “Never Lose a Holy Curiosity”', Life (2 May 1955), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Great (1610)  |  Involved (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leap (57)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Point (584)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)

The minds that rise and become really great are never self-satisfied, but still continue to strive.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Continue (179)  |  Great (1610)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Rise (169)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Satisfied (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Strive (53)

The Moon is a white strange world, great, white, soft-seeming globe in the night sky, and what she actually communicates to me across space I shall never fully know. But the Moon that pulls the tides, and the Moon that controls the menstrual periods of women, and the Moon that touches the lunatics, she is not the mere dead lump of the astronomist.... When we describe the Moon as dead, we are describing the deadness in ourselves. When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Actually (27)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Control (182)  |  Dead (65)  |  Describe (132)  |  Emptiness (13)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fully (20)  |  Globe (51)  |  Great (1610)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lump (5)  |  Lunatic (9)  |  Mere (86)  |  Moon (252)  |  Night (133)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Period (200)  |  Pull (43)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sky (174)  |  Soft (30)  |  Space (523)  |  Strange (160)  |  Tide (37)  |  Touch (146)  |  Unbearable (2)  |  Void (31)  |  White (132)  |  Woman (160)  |  World (1850)

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Different (595)  |  Divine (112)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Domain (72)  |  Event (222)  |  Exist (458)  |  Firm (47)  |  Foot (65)  |  God (776)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imbue (2)  |  Independent (74)  |  Interfere (17)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leave (138)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Personal (75)  |  Real (159)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Refute (6)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Room (42)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Knowledge (11)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Side (236)  |  Will (2350)

The more I study the things of the mind the more mathematical I find them. In them as in mathematics it is a question of quantities; they must be treated with precision. I have never had more satisfaction than in proving this in the realms of art, politics and history.
Notes made after the completion of the third chapter of Vol. 3 of La Rivolution, 22 April 1883. In E. Sparvel-Bayly (trans.), Life and Letters of H. Taine (1902-1908), Vol. 3, 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Find (1014)  |  History (716)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Politics (122)  |  Precision (72)  |  Proof (304)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Realm (87)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treatment (135)

The more intelligence mankind bestows upon technology, the less knowledge a child is required to learn. If this pattern is never changed, the generation of the future may become reduced to nothing more than lifeless drones born for nothing except pushing buttons on a machine that lives the lives of their masters.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Bestow (18)  |  Button (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Drone (4)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Less (105)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Live (650)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Push (66)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Technology (281)

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Behind (139)  |  Blind (98)  |  Dead (65)  |  Deep (241)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Indirectly (7)  |  Least (75)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religiousness (3)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serious (98)  |  Something (718)  |  Sublimity (6)  |  Underlying (33)

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best—and therefore never scrutinize or question.
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (1997), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Know (1538)  |  Most (1728)  |  Question (649)  |  Scrutinize (7)  |  Scrutiny (15)  |  Think (1122)

The natural sciences are sometimes said to have no concern with values, nor to seek morality and goodness, and therefore belong to an inferior order of things. Counter-claims are made that they are the only living and dynamic studies... Both contentions are wrong. Language, Literature and Philosophy express, reflect and contemplate the world. But it is a world in which men will never be content to stay at rest, and so these disciplines cannot be cut off from the great searching into the nature of things without being deprived of life-blood.
Presidential Address to Classical Association, 1959. In E. J. Bowen's obituary of Hinshelwood, Chemistry in Britain (1967), Vol. 3, 536.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blood (144)  |  Both (496)  |  Claim (154)  |  Concern (239)  |  Contention (14)  |  Cut (116)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Express (192)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literature (116)  |  Living (492)  |  Morality (55)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Order (638)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Rest (287)  |  Seek (218)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)

The necessary has never been man’s top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man’s greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities. Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
Commenting on the first moon landing. In 'Reactions to Man’s Landing on the Moon Show Broad Variations in Opinions', The New York Times (21 Jul 1969), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Chief (99)  |  Creature (242)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passionate (22)  |  Priority (11)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Strive (53)  |  Superfluity (2)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Top (100)  |  Trait (23)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Unlike (9)  |  Yearn (13)

The negative cautions of science are never popular. If the experimentalist would not commit himself, the social philosopher, the preacher, and the pedagogue tried the harder to give a short-cut answer.
In Coming of Age in Samoa (1928, 2001), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Caution (24)  |  Commit (43)  |  Cut (116)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Give (208)  |  Hard (246)  |  Himself (461)  |  Negative (66)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Popular (34)  |  Preacher (13)  |  Short (200)  |  Social (261)  |  Try (296)

The number of fixed stars which observers have been able to see without artificial powers of sight up to this day can be counted. It is therefore decidedly a great feat to add to their number, and to set distinctly before the eyes other stars in myriads, which have never been seen before, and which surpass the old, previously known stars in number more than ten times.
In pamphlet, The Sidereal Messenger (1610), reprinted in The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei: And a Part of the Preface to the Preface to Kepler's Dioptrics Containing the Original Account of Galileo's Astronomical Discoveries (1880), 7-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Count (107)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feat (11)  |  Great (1610)  |  Known (453)  |  More (2558)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Number (710)  |  Observer (48)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Sight (135)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Time (1911)

The observer is never entirely replaced by instruments; for if he were, he could obviously obtain no knowledge whatsoever ... They must be read! The observer’s senses have to step in eventuality. The most careful record, when not inspected, tells us nothing.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Careful (28)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Eventuality (2)  |  Inspect (3)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observer (48)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Obviously (11)  |  Read (308)  |  Record (161)  |  Replace (32)  |  Sense (785)  |  Step (234)  |  Tell (344)  |  Whatsoever (41)

The Pestilence can never breed the Small-Pox, nor the Small-Pox the Measles, nor they the Crystals or Chicken-Pox, any more than an Hen can breed a Duck, a Wolf a Sheep, or a Thistle Figs; and consequently, one Sort cannot be a Preservative against any other Sort.
In Ludvig Hektoen, 'Thomas Fuller 1654-1734: country physician and pioneer exponent of specificness in infection and immunity', Bulletin of the Society of Medical History of Chicago (Mar 1922), 2, 321. In the reprint of the paper alone, the quote is on page 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Breed (26)  |  Consequently (5)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Duck (3)  |  Hen (9)  |  Measles (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Sheep (13)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Sort (50)  |  Thistle (5)  |  Wolf (11)

The phenomena in these exhausted tubes reveal to physical science a new world—a world where matter may exist in a fourth state, where the corpuscular theory of light may be true, and where light does not always move in straight lines, but where we can never enter, and with which we must be content to observe and experiment from the outside.
'On the Illumination of Lines of Molecular Pressure and the Trajectory of Molecules', Philosophical Transactions 1879, 170, 164.
Science quotes on:  |  Enter (145)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  Move (223)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Observe (179)  |  Outside (141)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Reveal (152)  |  State (505)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Theory (1015)  |  World (1850)

The phrase is self-contradictory; “sense” is never “common”.
In Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long (1973), 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)

The physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to experimental test, but only a whole group of hypotheses.
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906), 2nd edition (1914), trans. Philip P. Wiener (1954), 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Subject (543)  |  Test (221)  |  Whole (756)

The picture of scientific method drafted by modern philosophy is very different from traditional conceptions. Gone is the ideal of a universe whose course follows strict rules, a predetermined cosmos that unwinds itself like an unwinding clock. Gone is the ideal of the scientist who knows the absolute truth. The happenings of nature are like rolling dice rather than like revolving stars; they are controlled by probability laws, not by causality, and the scientist resembles a gambler more than a prophet. He can tell you only his best posits—he never knows beforehand whether they will come true. He is a better gambler, though, than the man at the green table, because his statistical methods are superior. And his goal is staked higher—the goal of foretelling the rolling dice of the cosmos. If he is asked why he follows his methods, with what title he makes his predictions, he cannot answer that he has an irrefutable knowledge of the future; he can only lay his best bets. But he can prove that they are best bets, that making them is the best he can do—and if a man does his best, what else can you ask of him?
The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (1951, 1973), 248-9. Collected in James Louis Jarrett and Sterling M. McMurrin (eds.), Contemporary Philosophy: A Book of Readings (1954), 376.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Absoluteness (4)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Best (467)  |  Bet (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Causality (11)  |  Clock (51)  |  Conception (160)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Course (413)  |  Dice (21)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draft (6)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foretelling (4)  |  Future (467)  |  Gambler (7)  |  Goal (155)  |  Green (65)  |  Happening (59)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Irrefutable (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Picture (148)  |  Posit (2)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Prove (261)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Roll (41)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stake (20)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Table (105)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

The poetic beauty of Davy's mind never seems to have left him. To that circumstance I would ascribe the distinguishing feature in his character, and in his discoveries,—a vivid imagination sketching out new tracts in regions unexplored, for the judgement to select those leading to the recesses of abstract truth.
Presidential Address to the Royal Society on Davy's Death, 1829. Quoted in J. Davy, Fragmentary Remains of Sir Humphry Davy (1858), 314.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Biography (254)  |  Character (259)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Select (45)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vivid (25)

The ponderous instrument of synthesis, so effective in his [Newton’s] hands, has never since been grasped by one who could use it for such purposes; and we gaze at it with admiring curiosity, as on some gigantic implement of war, which stands idle among the memorials of ancient days, and makes us wonder what manner of man he was who could wield as a weapon what we can hardly lift as a burden.
In History of the Inductive Sciences (1857), Vol. 2, 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Effective (68)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Idle (34)  |  Implement (13)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Lift (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memorial (4)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Ponderous (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Stand (284)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Use (771)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Wonder (251)

The position in which we are now is a very strange one which in general political life never happened. Namely, the thing that I refer to is this: To have security against atomic bombs and against the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Biological (137)  |  Disposal (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  General (521)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Namely (11)  |  Nation (208)  |  Other (2233)  |  Political (124)  |  Position (83)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Promise (72)  |  Refer (14)  |  Security (51)  |  Spite (55)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Will (2350)

The position of the anthropologist of to-day resembles in some sort the position of classical scholars at the revival of learning. To these men the rediscovery of ancient literature came like a revelation, disclosing to their wondering eyes a splendid vision of the antique world, such as the cloistered of the Middle Ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow of the minster and within the sound of its solemn bells. To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims at bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to follow the long march, the slow and toilsome ascent, of humanity from savagery to civilization. And as the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely fresh food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so in the mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from many sides—from buried cities of remotest antiquity as well as from the rudest savages of the desert and the jungle—we of to-day must recognise a new province of knowledge which will task the energies of generations of students to master.
'Author’s Introduction' (1900). In Dr Theodor H. Gaster (ed.), The New Golden Bough (1959), xxv-xxvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bell (35)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Classical (49)  |  Desert (59)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fad (10)  |  Faith (209)  |  Field (378)  |  Follow (389)  |  Food (213)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Generation (256)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learning (291)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Mankind (356)  |  March (48)  |  Mass (160)  |  Master (182)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Practice (212)  |  Province (37)  |  Race (278)  |  Rediscovery (2)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Sound (187)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Vision (127)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The powers of nature are never in repose; her work never stands still.
Letter 3 to William Wordsworth. Quoted in the appendix to W. Wordsworth, A Complete Guide to the Lakes, Comprising Minute Direction for the Tourist, with Mr Wordsworth's Description of the Scenery of the County and Three Letters upon the Geology of the Lake District (1842), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Nature (2017)  |  Power (771)  |  Repose (9)  |  Stand (284)  |  Still (614)  |  Work (1402)

The powers which tend to preserve, and those which tend to change the condition of the earth's surface, are never in equilibrio; the latter are, in all cases, the most powerful, and, in respect of the former, are like living in comparison of dead forces. Hence the law of decay is one which suffers no exception: The elements of all bodies were once loose and unconnected, and to the same state nature has appointed that they should all return... TIME performs the office of integrating the infinitesimal parts of which this progression is made up; it collects them into one sum, and produces from them an amount greater than any that can be assigned.
Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), 116-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Appointment (12)  |  Assignment (12)  |  Change (639)  |  Collection (68)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Condition (362)  |  Decay (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Exception (74)  |  Force (497)  |  Former (138)  |  Greater (288)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Integration (21)  |  Law (913)  |  Living (492)  |  Loose (14)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Office (71)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Production (190)  |  Progression (23)  |  Respect (212)  |  Return (133)  |  State (505)  |  Sum (103)  |  Surface (223)  |  Tend (124)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unconnected (10)

The primary rocks, … I regard as the deposits of a period in which the earth’s crust had sufficiently cooled down to permit the existence of a sea, with the necessary denuding agencies,—waves and currents,—and, in consequence, of deposition also; but in which the internal heat acted so near the surface, that whatever was deposited came, matter of course, to be metamorphosed into semi-plutonic forms, that retained only the stratification. I dare not speak of the scenery of the period. We may imagine, however, a dark atmosphere of steam and vapour, which for age after age conceals the face of the sun, and through which the light of moon or star never penetrates; oceans of thermal water heated in a thousand centres to the boiling point; low, half-molten islands, dim through the log, and scarce more fixed than the waves themselves, that heave and tremble under the impulsions of the igneous agencies; roaring geysers, that ever and anon throw up their intermittent jets of boiling fluid, vapour, and thick steam, from these tremulous lands; and, in the dim outskirts of the scene, the red gleam of fire, shot forth from yawning cracks and deep chasms, and that bears aloft fragments of molten rock and clouds of ashes. But should we continue to linger amid a scene so featureless and wild, or venture adown some yawning opening into the abyss beneath, where all is fiery and yet dark,—a solitary hell, without suffering or sin,—we would do well to commit ourselves to the guidance of a living poet of the true faculty,—Thomas Aird and see with his eyes.
Lecture Sixth, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 297-298.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  Ash (21)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Commit (43)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Crack (15)  |  Crust (43)  |  Current (122)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deposition (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Existence (481)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hell (32)  |  Igneous (3)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Internal (69)  |  Island (49)  |  Light (635)  |  Linger (14)  |  Living (492)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metamorphosis (5)  |  Molten (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Period (200)  |  Permit (61)  |  Poet (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Primary (82)  |  Regard (312)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sin (45)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Speak (240)  |  Star (460)  |  Steam (81)  |  Stratification (2)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wild (96)

The principles of logic and mathematics are true universally simply because we never allow them to be anything else. And the reason for this is that we cannot abandon them without contradicting ourselves, without sinning against the rules which govern the use of language, and so making our utterances self-stultifying. In other words, the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies.
Language, Truth and Logic (1960), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Against (332)  |  Govern (66)  |  Language (308)  |  Logic (311)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rule (307)  |  Self (268)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Word (650)

The problem of modern democracy is not that the people have lost their power, but that they have lost their appreciation for the extraordinary power they wield. Consider one astonishing truth: Famine has never struck a democracy.
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Consider (428)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Famine (18)  |  Lose (165)  |  Modern (402)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Problem (731)  |  Strike (72)  |  Truth (1109)

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.
From Address (Jun 1963) to the Irish Parliament, Dublin, as collected in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy (1964), 537.
Science quotes on:  |  Cynic (7)  |  Dream (222)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Need (320)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reality (274)  |  Skeptic (8)  |  Solve (145)  |  Thing (1914)  |  World (1850)

The prominent reason why a mathematician can be judged by none but mathematicians, is that he uses a peculiar language. The language of mathesis is special and untranslatable. In its simplest forms it can be translated, as, for instance, we say a right angle to mean a square corner. But you go a little higher in the science of mathematics, and it is impossible to dispense with a peculiar language. It would defy all the power of Mercury himself to explain to a person ignorant of the science what is meant by the single phrase “functional exponent.” How much more impossible, if we may say so, would it be to explain a whole treatise like Hamilton’s Quaternions, in such a wise as to make it possible to judge of its value! But to one who has learned this language, it is the most precise and clear of all modes of expression. It discloses the thought exactly as conceived by the writer, with more or less beauty of form, but never with obscurity. It may be prolix, as it often is among French writers; may delight in mere verbal metamorphoses, as in the Cambridge University of England; or adopt the briefest and clearest forms, as under the pens of the geometers of our Cambridge; but it always reveals to us precisely the writer’s thought.
In North American Review (Jul 1857), 85, 224-225.
Science quotes on:  |  Adopt (22)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Brief (37)  |  Cambridge (17)  |  Cambridge University (2)  |  Clear (111)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Corner (59)  |  Defy (11)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Dispense (10)  |  England (43)  |  Exact (75)  |  Explain (334)  |  Exponent (6)  |  Expression (181)  |  Form (976)  |  French (21)  |  Function (235)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Hamilton_William (2)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Judge (114)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Metamorphose (2)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pen (21)  |  Person (366)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Prolix (2)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Quaternion (9)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Right (473)  |  Right Angle (4)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Single (365)  |  Special (188)  |  Square (73)  |  Thought (995)  |  Translate (21)  |  Treatise (46)  |  University (130)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Verbal (10)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)  |  Wise (143)  |  Writer (90)

The puritanical potentialities of science have never been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchically organized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of 'decency.' The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.
Wyndham Lewis: an Anthology of his Prose (1969), 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Body (557)  |  Breath (61)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Decency (5)  |  Establish (63)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Finger (48)  |  First (1302)  |  Forecast (15)  |  Fume (7)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Liquor (6)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Offensive (4)  |  Organization (120)  |  Potential (75)  |  Puritan (3)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rite (3)  |  Stain (10)  |  Taint (10)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tobacco (19)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)

The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?
As quoted in Jack Shepherd, "David Attenborough: 15 of the naturalist’s best quotes: In celebration of his 94th birthday", Independent (8 May 2017), on independent.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Grandchild (3)  |  Happy (108)  |  Picture (148)  |  Question (649)  |  See (1094)  |  Suppose (158)

The really important questions in human life are hardly touched upon by psychologists. Do liars come to believe their own lies? Is pleasure the same as happiness? Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved, or not to be able to love?
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Do (1905)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Psychologist (26)  |  Question (649)  |  Touch (146)

The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  People (1031)  |  Reason (766)

The result is that a generation of physicists is growing up who have never exercised any particular degree of individual initiative, who have had no opportunity to experience its satisfactions or its possibilities, and who regard cooperative work in large teams as the normal thing. It is a natural corollary for them to feel that the objectives of these large teams must be something of large social significance.
In 'Science and Freedom: Reflections of a Physicist', Isis, 1947, 37, 130.
Science quotes on:  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Degree (277)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feel (371)  |  Generation (256)  |  Growing (99)  |  Individual (420)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Large (398)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Objective (96)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Regard (312)  |  Result (700)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Significance (114)  |  Social (261)  |  Something (718)  |  Team (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)

The results of science are never quite true. By a healthy independence of thought perhaps we sometimes avoid adding other people’s errors to our own.
In 'Space, Time and Relativity', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929), 149.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Error (339)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Independence (37)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Result (700)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)

The ridge of the Lammer-muir hills... consists of primary micaceous schistus, and extends from St Abb's head westward... The sea-coast affords a transverse section of this alpine tract at its eastern extremity, and exhibits the change from the primary to the secondary strata... Dr HUTTON wished particularly to examine the latter of these, and on this occasion Sir JAMES HALL and I had the pleasure to accompany him. We sailed in a boat from Dunglass ... We made for a high rocky point or head-land, the SICCAR ... On landing at this point, we found that we actually trode [sic] on the primeval rock... It is here a micaceous schistus, in beds nearly vertical, highly indurated, and stretching from S.E. to N. W. The surface of this rock... has thin covering of red horizontal sandstone laid over it, ... Here, therefore, the immediate contact of the two rocks is not only visible, but is curiously dissected and laid open by the action of the waves... On us who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression will not easily be forgotten. The palpable evidence presented to us, of one of the most extraordinary and important facts in the natural history of the earth, gave a reality and substance to those theoretical speculations, which, however probable had never till now been directly authenticated by the testimony of the senses... What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? ... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.
'Biographical Account of the Late Dr James Hutton, F.R.S. Edin.' (read 1803), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1805), 5, 71-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Accompany (22)  |  Action (342)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Change (639)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contact (66)  |  Covering (14)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Earnestness (3)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examine (84)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Formation (100)  |  Grow (247)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  James Hutton (22)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impression (118)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primary (82)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sandstone (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wonderful (155)

The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.
In Heinrich Heinne and Charles Godfrey Leland (trans.), Pictures of Travel (1871), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Conquer (39)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Latin (44)  |  Learn (672)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Obliged (6)  |  Roman (39)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says “Yes” to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says “Maybe,” and in the great majority of cases simply “No.” If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter “Maybe,” and if it does not agree it means “No.” Probably every theory will someday experience its “No”—most theories, soon after conception.
In Albert Einstein: The Human Side by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann (1979).
Science quotes on:  |  Conception (160)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inexorable (10)  |  Judge (114)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Someday (15)  |  Soon (187)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The scientist describes what is; the engineer creates what never was.
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (1980), 26, 110. As cited in Alan L. Mackay, A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1994), 138. (Also seen as “Scientists study/discover the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been.”)
Science quotes on:  |  Create (245)  |  Describe (132)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Science And Engineering (16)  |  Scientist (881)

The scientist, by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and more questions, never fewer. Indeed the measure of our intellectual maturity, one philosopher suggests, is our capacity to feel less and less satisfied with our answers to better problems.
Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality (1955), 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Better (493)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Create (245)  |  Feel (371)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Maturity (14)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Suggest (38)

The sea never changes and its works, for all the talks of men, are wrapped in mystery.
In Typhoon, and Other Stories (1902, 1923), 46. Writing started in 1899, and first published serialized in Pall Mall Magazine (Jan–Mar 1902).
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Sea (326)  |  Talk (108)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrap (7)

The second [argument about motion] is the so-called Achilles, and it amounts to this, that in a race the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.
Statement of the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox in the relation of the discrete to the continuous.; perhaps the earliest example of the reductio ad absurdum method of proof.
Zeno
Aristotle, Physics, 239b, 14-6. In Jonathan Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (1984), Vol. 1, 404.
Science quotes on:  |  Achilles (2)  |  Amount (153)  |  Argument (145)  |  Call (781)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Discrete (11)  |  First (1302)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Overtake (2)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reductio Ad Absurdum (2)  |  Runner (2)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Start (237)  |  Statement (148)  |  Tortoise (10)

The skein of human continuity must often become this tenuous across the centuries (hanging by a thread, in the old cliché), but the circle remains unbroken if I can touch the ink of Lavoisier’s own name, written by his own hand. A candle of light, nurtured by the oxygen of his greatest discovery, never burns out if we cherish the intellectual heritage of such unfractured filiation across the ages. We may also wish to contemplate the genuine physical thread of nucleic acid that ties each of us to the common bacterial ancestor of all living creatures, born on Lavoisier’s ancienne terre more than 3.5 billion years ago—and never since disrupted, not for one moment, not for one generation. Such a legacy must be worth preserving from all the guillotines of our folly.
From The Lying Stones of Marrakech (2000, 2011), 114, previously published in an article in Natural History Magazine. Gould was writing about tangibly having Lavoisier’s signature on proof plates bought at an auction. (The plates were made to accompany Lavoisier’s sole geological article of 1789.)
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Across (32)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Billion (104)  |  Burn (99)  |  Candle (32)  |  Century (319)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Circle (117)  |  Cliche (8)  |  Common (447)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Creature (242)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disrupt (2)  |  Folly (44)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guillotine (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hang (46)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ink (11)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Often (109)  |  Old (499)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Physical (518)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Remain (355)  |  Skein (2)  |  Tenuous (3)  |  Thread (36)  |  Tie (42)  |  Touch (146)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worth (172)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

The spark of a genius exists in the brain of the truly creative man from the hour of his birth. True genius is always inborn and never cultivated, let alone learned.
Mein Kampf (1925-26), American Edition (1943), 212-13. In William Lawrence Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1990), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Birth (154)  |  Brain (281)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Exist (458)  |  Genius (301)  |  Hour (192)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Man (2252)  |  Spark (32)  |  Truly (118)

The speculative propositions of mathematics do not relate to facts; … all that we are convinced of by any demonstration in the science, is of a necessary connection subsisting between certain suppositions and certain conclusions. When we find these suppositions actually take place in a particular instance, the demonstration forces us to apply the conclusion. Thus, if I could form a triangle, the three sides of which were accurately mathematical lines, I might affirm of this individual figure, that its three angles are equal to two right angles; but, as the imperfection of my senses puts it out of my power to be, in any case, certain of the exact correspondence of the diagram which I delineate, with the definitions given in the elements of geometry, I never can apply with confidence to a particular figure, a mathematical theorem. On the other hand, it appears from the daily testimony of our senses that the speculative truths of geometry may be applied to material objects with a degree of accuracy sufficient for the purposes of life; and from such applications of them, advantages of the most important kind have been gained to society.
In Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1827), Vol. 3, Chap. 1, Sec. 3, 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Angle (25)  |  Appear (122)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Connection (171)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Daily (91)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Equal (88)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Gain (146)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Object (438)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Right (473)  |  Right Angle (4)  |  Sense (785)  |  Side (236)  |  Society (350)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

The statement that although the past can be recorded, the future cannot, is translatable into the statistical statement: Isolated states of order are always postinteraction states, never preinteraction states.
'18. Cause aud Effect: Producing and Recording—The Time Direction of Macrostatistics', in Hans Reichenbach and Maria Reichenbach (ed.), The Direction of Time (1956, 1991), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Future (467)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Order (638)  |  Past (355)  |  Record (161)  |  State (505)  |  Statement (148)

The study of Nature is intercourse with the highest mind. You should never trifle with Nature. At her lowest her works are the works of the highest powers, the highest something in the universe, in whichever way we look at it… This is the charm of Study from Nature itself; she brings us back to absolute truth wherever we wander.
Lecture at a teaching laboratory on Penikese Island, Buzzard's Bay. Quoted from the lecture notes by David Starr Jordan, Science Sketches (1911), 147. Last sentence included with the quote in Peter Haring Judd (ed.), Affection: Ninety Years of Family Letters, 1850s-1930s: Haring, White, Griggs, Judd Families of New York and Waterbury, Connecticut (206), 102, where it is also noted that this comes from what must have been one of his last lectures since Agassiz died shortly thereafter.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Back (395)  |  Charm (54)  |  Intercourse (5)  |  Look (584)  |  Lowest (10)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Power (771)  |  Something (718)  |  Study (701)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wander (44)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Work (1402)

The success of Apollo was mainly due to the fact that the project was conceived and honestly presented to the public as an international sporting event and not as a contribution to science. The order of priorities in Apollo was accurately reflected by the first item to be unloaded after each landing on the Moon's surface, the television camera. The landing, the coming and going of the astronauts, the exploring of the moon's surface, the gathering of Moon rocks and the earthward departure, all were expertly choreographed with the cameras placed in the right positions to make a dramatic show on television. This was to me the great surprise of the Apollo missions. There was nothing surprising in the fact that astronauts could walk on the Moon and bring home Moon rocks. There were no big scientific surprises in the chemistry of the Moon rocks or in the results of magnetic and seismic observations that the astronauts carried out. The big surprise was the quality of the public entertainment that the missions provided. I had never expected that we would see in real time astronauts hopping around in lunar gravity and driving their Rover down the Lincoln- Lee scarp to claim a lunar speed record of eleven miles per hour. Intensive television coverage was the driving force of Apollo. Von Braun had not imagined the possibilities of television when he decided that one kilohertz would be an adequate communication bandwidth for his Mars Project.
From a Danz lecture at University of Washington, 'Sixty Years of Space Science 1958-2018' (1988), collected in From Eros to Gaia (1992), Vol. 5, 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Apollo (9)  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Bandwidth (2)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Claim (154)  |  Coming (114)  |  Communication (101)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Down (455)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Driving (28)  |  Due (143)  |  Entertainment (19)  |  Event (222)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Home (184)  |  Honestly (10)  |  Hour (192)  |  International (40)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mission (23)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Present (630)  |  Project (77)  |  Quality (139)  |  Record (161)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Speed (66)  |  Success (327)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Television (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Walk (138)

The surest way to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill;
Most of the ills which we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow.
In 'Night: An Epistle to Robert Lloyd', Poems of Charles Churchill (1822), Vol. 1, 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Doctor (191)  |  Flow (89)  |  Health (210)  |  Ill (12)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Poor (139)  |  Say (989)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Surest (5)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

The terror created by weaponry has never stopped men from employing them.
Speech to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (14 Jun 1946). In Alfred J. Kolatch, Great Jewish Quotations (1996), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Terror (32)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)

The theory of numbers is particularly liable to the accusation that some of its problems are the wrong sort of questions to ask. I do not myself think the danger is serious; either a reasonable amount of concentration leads to new ideas or methods of obvious interest, or else one just leaves the problem alone. “Perfect numbers” certainly never did any good, but then they never did any particular harm.
In A Mathematician’s Miscellany (1953). Reissued as Béla Bollobás (ed.), Littlewood’s Miscellany (1986), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Accusation (6)  |  Alone (324)  |  Amount (153)  |  Ask (420)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Danger (127)  |  Do (1905)  |  Good (906)  |  Harm (43)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave Alone (3)  |  Liable (5)  |  Method (531)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Number (710)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfect Number (6)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Serious (98)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wrong (246)

The transition from a paradigm in crisis to a new one from which a new tradition of normal science can emerge is far from a cumulative process, one achieved by an articulation or extension of the old paradigm. Rather it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction that changes some of the field's most elementary theoretical generalizations as well as many of its paradigm methods and applications. During the transition period there will be a large but never complete overlap between the problems that can be solved by the old and by the new paradigm. But there will also be a decisive difference in the modes of solution. When the transition is complete, the profession will have changed its view of the field, its methods, and its goals.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), 84-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Change (639)  |  Complete (209)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Cumulative (14)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Difference (355)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Extension (60)  |  Field (378)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Goal (155)  |  Large (398)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Overlap (9)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Period (200)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Profession (108)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Solution (282)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Transition (28)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

The trouble is not that we are never happy—it is that happiness is so episodical. … I cannot see what holds it together.
In An Anthropologist at Work (1959, 2011), 121.
Science quotes on:  |  Episode (5)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  See (1094)  |  Together (392)  |  Trouble (117)

The true scientist never loses the faculty of amusement. It is the essence of his being.
In The Peter Pyramid by Laurence J. Peter (1986).
Science quotes on:  |  Amusement (37)  |  Being (1276)  |  Essence (85)  |  Lose (165)  |  Scientist (881)

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth—never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
In 'Wonder and Skepticism', Skeptical Enquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Approach (112)  |  Asymptote (2)  |  Asymptotic (2)  |  Cleverness (15)  |  Closer (43)  |  Consonant (3)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Counterintuitive (4)  |  Design (203)  |  Desperation (6)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Finding (34)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Key (56)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Preference (28)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Puzzling (8)  |  Reach (286)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Vast (188)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)

The ultimate origin of the difficulty lies in the fact (or philosophical principle) that we are compelled to use the words of common language when we wish to describe a phenomenon, not by logical or mathematical analysis, but by a picture appealing to the imagination. Common language has grown by everyday experience and can never surpass these limits. Classical physics has restricted itself to the use of concepts of this kind; by analysing visible motions it has developed two ways of representing them by elementary processes; moving particles and waves. There is no other way of giving a pictorial description of motions—we have to apply it even in the region of atomic processes, where classical physics breaks down.
Max Born
Atomic Physics (1957), 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apply (170)  |  Break (109)  |  Classical (49)  |  Classical Physics (6)  |  Common (447)  |  Concept (242)  |  Describe (132)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Down (455)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Motion (320)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Principle (530)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Two (936)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Use (771)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)

The understanding between a non-technical writer and his reader is that he shall talk more or less like a human being and not like an Act of Parliament. I take it that the aim of such books must be to convey exact thought in inexact language... he can never succeed without the co-operation of the reader.
Messenger Lectures (1934), New Pathways in Science (1935), 279.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Aim (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Inexact (3)  |  Language (308)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Operation (221)  |  Parliament (8)  |  Publication (102)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Writer (90)

The understanding must not however be allowed to jump and fly from particulars to axioms remote and of almost the highest generality (such as the first principles, as they are called, of arts and things), and taking stand upon them as truths that cannot be shaken, proceed to prove and frame the middle axioms by reference to them; which has been the practice hitherto, the understanding being not only carried that way by a natural impulse, but also by the use of syllogistic demonstration trained and inured to it. But then, and then only, may we hope well of the sciences when in a just scale of ascent, and by successive steps not interrupted or broken, we rise from particulars to lesser axioms; and then to middle axioms, one above the other; and last of all to the most general. For the lowest axioms differ but slightly from bare experience, while the highest and most general (which we now have) are notional and abstract and without solidity. But the middle are the true and solid and living axioms, on which depend the affairs and fortunes of men; and above them again, last of all, those which are indeed the most general; such, I mean, as are not abstract, but of which those intermediate axioms are really limitations.
The understanding must not therefore be supplied with wings, but rather hung with weights, to keep it from leaping and flying. Now this has never yet been done; when it is done, we may entertain better hopes of science.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 104. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Art (680)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Bare (33)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Broken (56)  |  Call (781)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Depend (238)  |  Differ (88)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Fortune (50)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Hope (321)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Jump (31)  |  Last (425)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Living (492)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scale (122)  |  Solid (119)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Train (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wing (79)

The universe flows, carrying with it milky ways and worlds, Gondwanas and Eurasias, inconsistent visions and clumsy systems. But the good conceptual models, these serena templa of intelligence on which several masters have worked, never disappear entirely. They are the great legacy of the past. They linger under more and more harmonious forms and actually never cease to grow. They bring solace by the great art that is inseparable from them. Their permanence relies on the immortal poetry of truth, of the truth that is given to us in minute amounts, foretelling an order whose majesty dominates time.
In Tectonics of Asia (1924, 1977), 164, trans. Albert V. and Marguerite Carozzi.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Art (680)  |  Cease (81)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flow (89)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Linger (14)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Master (182)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Minute (129)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Past (355)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Poetry (150)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

The vigorous branching of life’s tree, and not the accumulating valor of mythical marches to progress, lies behind the persistence and expansion of organic diversity in our tough and constantly stressful world. And if we do not grasp the fundamental nature of branching as the key to life’s passage across the geological stage, we will never understand evolution aright.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Across (32)  |  Aright (3)  |  Behind (139)  |  Branch (155)  |  Branching (10)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Geological (11)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Key (56)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  March (48)  |  Mythical (3)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organic (161)  |  Passage (52)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Progress (492)  |  Stage (152)  |  Tough (22)  |  Tree (269)  |  Understand (648)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The wall that says "welcome, stranger" has never been built.
Aphorism as given by the fictional character Dezhnev Senior, in Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987), 210.
Science quotes on:  |  Say (989)  |  Wall (71)  |  Welcome (20)

The whole inherent pride of human nature revolts at the idea that the lord of the creation is to be treated like any other natural object. No sooner does the naturalist discover the resemblance of some higher mammals, such as the ape, to man, than there is a general outcry against the presumptuous audacity that ventures to touch man in his inmost sanctuary. The whole fraternity of philosophers, who have never seen monkeys except in zoological gardens, at once mount the high horse, and appeal to the mind, the soul, to reason, to consciousness, and to all the rest of the innate faculties of man, as they are refracted in their own philosophical prisms.
Carl Vogt
From Carl Vogt and James Hunt (ed.), Lectures on Man: His Place in Creation, and in the History of the Earth (1861), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Ape (54)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Audacity (7)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Creation (350)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Fraternity (4)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  High (370)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Innate (14)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Mount (43)  |  Natural (810)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcry (3)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Pride (84)  |  Prism (8)  |  Reason (766)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Rest (287)  |  Revolt (3)  |  Sanctuary (12)  |  Soul (235)  |  Touch (146)  |  Whole (756)

The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines. They try to test our imagination in the following way. They say, “Here is a picture of some people in a situation. What do you imagine will happen next?” When we say, “I can’t imagine,” they may think we have a weak imagination. They overlook the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know; that the electric fields and the waves we talk about are not just some happy thoughts which we are free to make as we wish, but ideas which must be consistent with all the laws of physics we know. We can’t allow ourselves to seriously imagine things which are obviously in contradiction to the laws of nature. And so our kind of imagination is quite a difficult game. One has to have the imagination to think of something that has never been seen before, never been heard of before. At the same time the thoughts are restricted in a strait jacket, so to speak, limited by the conditions that come from our knowledge of the way nature really is. The problem of creating something which is new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty
In The Feynman Lectures in Physics (1964), Vol. 2, Lecture 20, p.20-10 to p.20-11.
Science quotes on:  |  Allow (51)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Create (245)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electric Field (3)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Field (378)  |  Free (239)  |  Game (104)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happy (108)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Physics (5)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Misunderstand (3)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Overlook (33)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  Situation (117)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weak (73)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

The wonderful structure of the animal system will probably never permit us to look upon it as a merely physical apparatus, yet the demands of science require that the evidently magnified principles of vitality should be reduced to their natural spheres, or if truth requires, wholly subverted in favor of those more cognizable by the human understanding. The spirit of the age will not tolerate in the devotee of science a quiet indifference. ...
In 'An Inquiry, Analogical and Experimental, into the Different Electrical conditions of Arterial and Venous Blood', New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal (1853-4), 10, 584-602 & 738-757. As cited in George B. Roth, 'Dr. John Gorrie—Inventor of Artificial Ice and Mechanical Refrigeration', The Scientific Monthly (May 1936) 42 No. 5, 464-469.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Demand (131)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Favor (69)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indifference (16)  |  Look (584)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Permit (61)  |  Physical (518)  |  Principle (530)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Require (229)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)

The word, “Vitamine,” served as a catchword which meant something even to the uninitiated, and it was not by mere accident that just at that time, research developed so markedly in this direction. Our view as to the fortunate choice of this name is strengthened, on the one hand, because it has become popular (and a badly chosen catchword, like a folksong without feeling, can never become popular), and on the other, because of the untiring efforts of other workers to introduce a varied nomenclature, for example, “accessory food factors, food hormones, water-soluble B and fat-soluble A, nutramine, and auximone” (for plants). Some of these designations are certainly not better, while others are much worse than “Vitamine.”
The Vitamines translated by Harry Ennis Dubin (1922), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Badly (32)  |  Become (821)  |  Better (493)  |  Catchword (3)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Designation (13)  |  Develop (278)  |  Direction (185)  |  Effort (243)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Food (213)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Hormone (11)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomencalture (4)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Popularity (4)  |  Research (753)  |  Soluble (5)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Vitamin (13)  |  Water (503)  |  Word (650)

The work of Planck and Einstein proved that light behaved as particles in some ways and that the ether therefore was not needed for light to travel through a vacuum. When this was done, the ether was no longer useful and it was dropped with a glad cry. The ether has never been required since. It does not exist now; in fact, it never existed.
In Asimov on Physics (1976), 85. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Cry (30)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Ether (37)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Light (635)  |  Particle (200)  |  Max Planck (83)  |  Prove (261)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Through (846)  |  Travel (125)  |  Useful (260)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown
can never come over again.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  Follow (389)  |  Frown (5)  |  Rain (70)  |  Sneer (9)  |  Sunshine (12)  |  World (1850)  |  Yesterday (37)

The world has different owners at sunrise… Even your own garden does not belong to you. Rabbits and blackbirds have the lawns; a tortoise-shell cat who never appears in daytime patrols the brick walls, and a golden-tailed pheasant glints his way through the iris spears.
In Listen! The Wind (1938), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blackbird (4)  |  Brick (20)  |  Brick Wall (2)  |  Cat (52)  |  Daytime (3)  |  Different (595)  |  Garden (64)  |  Glint (2)  |  Golden (47)  |  Iris (2)  |  Lawn (5)  |  Owner (5)  |  Rabbit (10)  |  Shell (69)  |  Spear (8)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Through (846)  |  Tortoise (10)  |  Wall (71)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The world over which early man wandered was to him the theatre of a never-ending conflict, in which were arrayed against him impassable seas, unscalable mountains, gloomy forests peopled by deadly beasts of prey, raging streams and foaming torrents, each and all the haunts of spirits luring him to doom.
In 'The Relations of Geology', Scottish Geographical Magazine (Aug 1902), 19, No. 8, 395-396.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Beast (58)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Doom (34)  |  Early (196)  |  Foam (3)  |  Forest (161)  |  Gloomy (4)  |  Haunt (6)  |  Lure (9)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Never-Ending (3)  |  Prey (13)  |  Raging (2)  |  Sea (326)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stream (83)  |  Theatre (5)  |  Torrent (5)  |  Wander (44)  |  World (1850)

The world will never starve for want of wonders but only for the want of wonder.
In Tremendous Trifles (1909), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Starve (3)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

The world, nature, human beings, do not move like machines. The edges are never clear-cut, but always frayed. Nature never draws a line without smudging it.
From Great Contemporaries (1937), 113. Writing about Herbert Henry Asquith, British Prime Minister (1908-16), the context of this quote was the necessity for a leader to have flexibility of judgment in the face of change.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Cut (116)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Edge (51)  |  Frayed (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Line (100)  |  Machine (271)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  World (1850)

The year 1896 … marked the beginning of what has been aptly termed the heroic age of Physical Science. Never before in the history of physics has there been witnessed such a period of intense activity when discoveries of fundamental importance have followed one another with such bewildering rapidity.
In 'The Electrical Structure of Matter', Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1924), C2.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Age (509)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bewilderment (8)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Hero (45)  |  History (716)  |  Importance (299)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Marked (55)  |  Period (200)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Term (357)  |  Witness (57)  |  Year (963)

Their vain presumption of knowing all can take beginning solely from their never having known anything; for if one has but once experienced the perfect knowledge of one thing, and truly tasted what it is to know, he shall perceive that of infinite other conclusions he understands not so much as one.
Dialogue on the Great World Systems (1632). Revised and Annotated by Giorgio De Santillana (1953), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truly (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Vain (86)

There are many points in the history of an invention which the inventor himself is apt to overlook as trifling, but in which posterity never fail to take a deep interest. The progress of the human mind is never traced with such a lively interest as through the steps by which it perfects a great invention; and there is certainly no invention respecting which this minute information will be more eagerly sought after, than in the case of the steam-engine.
Quoted in The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (1854), Vol.1, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainly (185)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Deep (241)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fail (191)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Information (173)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Lively (17)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Point (584)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Step (234)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

There are things out there that are very simple and you never think would work. … Wikipedia is one of those that it would never occur to me that something like that would work. … But it does work. … People who have taken fairly simple ideas, … at a certain scale and after they gain a certain amount of momentum, they can really take off and work. And that’s really an amazing thing.
Guest Lecture, UC Berkeley, 'Search Engines, Technology, and Business' (3 Oct 2005). At 1:13 in the YouTube video.
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Amount (153)  |  Certain (557)  |  Gain (146)  |  Idea (881)  |  Momentum (10)  |  Occur (151)  |  People (1031)  |  Scale (122)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Work (1402)

There are those who will say “unless we announce disasters, no one will listen”, but I’m not one of them. It’s not the sort of thing I would ever say. It’s quite the opposite of what I think and it pains me to see this quote being used repeatedly in this way. I would never say we should hype up the risk of climate disasters in order to get noticed.
In Steve Connor, 'Fabricated quote used to discredit climate scientist', The Independent (10 Feb 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Announce (13)  |  Being (1276)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Listen (81)  |  Notice (81)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Order (638)  |  Pain (144)  |  Quote (46)  |  Repeated (5)  |  Risk (68)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There can never be surprises in logic.
In Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1922), 165 (statement 6.1251).
Science quotes on:  |  Logic (311)  |  Surprise (91)

There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.
In Max Planck and James Vincent Murphy (trans.), Where is Science Going?, (1932), 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Complement (6)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Other (2233)  |  Real (159)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)

There can never be two or more equivalent electrons in an atom, for which in a strong field the values of all the quantum numbers n, k1, k2 and m are the same. If an electron is present, for which these quantum numbers (in an external field) have definite values, then this state is ‘occupied.’
Quoted by M. Fierz, in article ‘Wolfgang Pauli’, in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974), Vol. 10, 423.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Definite (114)  |  Electron (96)  |  Equivalence (7)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Field (378)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Present (630)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Number (2)  |  State (505)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Two (936)  |  Value (393)

There has never been an age so full of humbug. Humbug everywhere, even in science. For years now the scientists have been promising us every morning a new miracle, a new element, a new metal, guaranteeing to warm us with copper discs immersed in water, to feed us with nothing, to kill us at no expense whatever on a grand scale, to keep us alive indefinitely, to make iron out of heaven knows what. And all this fantastic, scientific humbugging leads to membership of the Institut, to decorations, to influence, to stipends, to the respect of serious people. In the meantime the cost of living rises, doubles, trebles; there is a shortage of raw materials; even death makes no progress—as we saw at Sebastopol, where men cut each other to ribbons—and the cheapest goods are still the worst goods in the world.
With co-author Jules de Goncourt (French writer, 1830-70)
Diary entry, 7 Jan 1857. In R. Baldick (ed. & trans.), Pages from the Goncourt Journal (1978), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Alive (97)  |  Author (175)  |  Copper (25)  |  Cost (94)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Element (322)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Good (906)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Influence (231)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Metal (88)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Morning (98)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Progress (492)  |  Raw (28)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rise (169)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Serious (98)  |  Still (614)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  Whatever (234)  |  World (1850)  |  Worst (57)  |  Writer (90)  |  Year (963)

There has never been just 'coach class' health care, but with these amenities you are seeing people get priorities according to your ability to pay. It's one thing to say you get perks; it's another to say you can buy your way to the head of the line.
Quoted in Nancy S. Tilghman, 'Southampton Hospital Drops V.I.P. Idea', New York Times (27 Jun 2004), L13.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  According (236)  |  Bioethics (12)  |  Care (203)  |  Class (168)  |  Health (210)  |  Health Care (10)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Money (178)  |  People (1031)  |  Say (989)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

There have been great men with little of what we call education. There have been many small men with a great deal of learning. There has never been a great people who did not possess great learning.
Quoted in Charles W. Thompson, Presidents I've Known and Two Near Presidents (1929), 374.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Deal (192)  |  Education (423)  |  Great (1610)  |  Learning (291)  |  Little (717)  |  Nation (208)  |  People (1031)  |  Possess (157)  |  Small (489)

There is a fine line between genius and madness—and you can achieve a lot when people are never quite sure which side of the line you’re on today.
From 'Quotable Spaf' on his faculty webpage at purdue.com with note that it is his own original aphorism.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Fine (37)  |  Genius (301)  |  Line (100)  |  Lot (151)  |  Madness (33)  |  People (1031)  |  Side (236)  |  Sure (15)  |  Today (321)

There is a popular cliché ... which says that you cannot get out of computers any more than you have put in..., that computers can only do exactly what you tell them to, and that therefore computers are never creative. This cliché is true only in a crashingly trivial sense, the same sense in which Shakespeare never wrote anything except what his first schoolteacher taught him to write—words.
In The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (1966, 1986), 64. Excerpted in Richard Dawkins, ‘Creation and Natural Selection’. New Scientist (25 Sep 1986), 111, 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Cliche (8)  |  Computer (131)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exactly (14)  |  Exception (74)  |  First (1302)  |  Input (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Output (12)  |  Popular (34)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Tell (344)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Sea. It is the Gulf Stream.
Opening paragraph of The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Arctic (10)  |  Arctic Sea (2)  |  Bank (31)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Cold (115)  |  Current (122)  |  Drought (14)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Flood (52)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Gulf Of Mexico (5)  |  Gulf Stream (2)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Overflow (10)  |  River (140)  |  Sea (326)  |  Stream (83)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)

There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon.
In The Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology (1855), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Amazon (11)  |  Arctic (10)  |  Arctic Sea (2)  |  Bank (31)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Cold (115)  |  Current (122)  |  Drought (14)  |  Fail (191)  |  Flood (52)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Gulf Of Mexico (5)  |  Gulf Stream (2)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Mighty (13)  |  Mississippi (7)  |  More (2558)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overflow (10)  |  Rapid (37)  |  River (140)  |  Sea (326)  |  Severe (17)  |  Stream (83)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)

There is no area in our minds reserved for superstition, such as the Greeks had in their mythology; and superstition, under cover of an abstract vocabulary, has revenged itself by invading the entire realm of thought. Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought. In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. To keep to the social level, our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities. This is illustrated by all the words of our political and social vocabulary: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property, democracy. We never use them in phrases such as: There is democracy to the extent that… or: There is capitalism in so far as… The use of expressions like “to the extent that” is beyond our intellectual capacity. Each of these words seems to represent for us an absolute reality, unaffected by conditions, or an absolute objective, independent of methods of action, or an absolute evil; and at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever. Our lives are lived, in actual fact, among changing, varying realities, subject to the casual play of external necessities, and modifying themselves according to specific conditions within specific limits; and yet we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions which cannot possibly be related either to one another or to any concrete facts. In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.
From 'The Power of Words', collected in Siân Miles (ed.), Simone Weil: An Anthology (2000), 222-223.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Against (332)  |  Age (509)  |  Apply (170)  |  Area (33)  |  Authority (99)  |  Battle (36)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Capitalism (12)  |  Casual (9)  |  Change (639)  |  Communism (11)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contain (68)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Cover (40)  |  Degree (277)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Device (71)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  End (603)  |  Entire (50)  |  Entity (37)  |  Evil (122)  |  Exclusively (10)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extent (142)  |  External (62)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Far (158)  |  Fascism (4)  |  Fight (49)  |  Fill (67)  |  Fix (34)  |  Greek (109)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Interdependence (4)  |  Interrelation (8)  |  Invade (5)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Level (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Live (650)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modify (15)  |  Monster (33)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myth (58)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Nation (208)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Objective (96)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  P (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Play (116)  |  Political (124)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Property (177)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reality (274)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Revenge (10)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Same (166)  |  Security (51)  |  Seem (150)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Solve (145)  |  Specific (98)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Store (49)  |  Strive (53)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Technician (9)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unaffected (6)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Vary (27)  |  Vocabulary (10)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Windmill (4)  |  Word (650)

There is no failure for the man who realizes his power, who never knows when he is beaten; there is no failure for the determined endeavor; the unconquerable will. There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persist when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beat (42)  |  Determine (152)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fall (243)  |  Give (208)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Persist (13)  |  Power (771)  |  Push (66)  |  Realize (157)  |  Rebound (3)  |  Rubber (11)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unconquerable (3)  |  Will (2350)

There is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of primitive and civilized man. A close connection between race and personality has never been established.
The Mind of Primitive Man (1938), preface, v.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Man (2252)  |  Personality (66)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Race (278)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Way (1214)

There is no more convincing proof of the truth of a comprehensive theory than its power of absorbing and finding a place for new facts, and its capability of interpreting phenomena which had been previously looked upon as unaccountable anomalies. It is thus that the law of universal gravitation and the undulatory theory of light have become established and universally accepted by men of science. Fact after fact has been brought forward as being apparently inconsistent with them, and one alter another these very facts have been shown to be the consequences of the laws they were at first supposed to disprove. A false theory will never stand this test. Advancing knowledge brings to light whole groups of facts which it cannot deal with, and its advocates steadily decrease in numbers, notwithstanding the ability and scientific skill with which it may have been supported.
From a review of four books on the subject 'Mimicry, and Other Protective Resemblances Among Animals', in The Westminster Review (Jul 1867), 88, 1. Wallace is identified as the author in the article as reprinted in William Beebe, The Book of Naturalists: An Anthology of the Best Natural History (1988), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Advocate (20)  |  Alter (64)  |  Anomaly (11)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capability (44)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Convincing (9)  |  Deal (192)  |  Decrease (16)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  False (105)  |  First (1302)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Inconsistency (5)  |  Interpreting (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Universal Gravitation (3)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Notwithstanding (2)  |  Number (710)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Proof (304)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Skill (116)  |  Stand (284)  |  Support (151)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undulation (4)  |  Universal (198)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

There is no sect in geometry; we never say,—An Euclidian, an Archimedian.
In 'Sects' Philosophical Dictionary (2010), 269.
Science quotes on:  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Say (989)  |  Sect (5)

There is no short cut, nor “royal road” to the attainment of medical knowledge. The path which we have to pursue is long, difficult, and unsafe. In our progress, we must frequently take up our abode with death and corruption, we must adopt loathsome diseases for our familiar associates, or we shall never be acquainted with their nature and dispositions ; we must risk, nay, even injure our own health, in order to be able to preserve, or restore that of others.
Hunterian Oration (1819). Quoted in Clement Carlyon, Early Years and Late Reflections (1856), 110-111.
Science quotes on:  |  Associate (25)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Disease (340)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Education (423)  |  Health (210)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Risk (68)  |  Royal (56)  |  Short (200)

There is no such thing as absolute truth and absolute falsehood. The scientific mind should never recognise the perfect truth or the perfect falsehood of any supposed theory or observation. It should carefully weigh the chances of truth and error and grade each in its proper position along the line joining absolute truth and absolute error.
In 'The Highest Aim of the Physicist: Presidential Address Delivered at the 2nd Meeting of the Society, October 28th, 1899', Bulletin of the American Physical Society (1899), 1, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Chance (244)  |  Error (339)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Join (32)  |  Joining (11)  |  Line (100)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observation (593)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Proper (150)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Weigh (51)

There is only one subject matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children—Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in substance committed to memory.
In 'The Aims of Education', The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Character (259)  |  Children (201)  |  Dreary (6)  |  Education (423)  |  Follow (389)  |  Geometry (271)  |  History (716)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literature (116)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Master (182)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Matter (821)  |  Memory (144)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Plot (11)  |  Represent (157)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Short (200)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Unity (81)

There may be a golden ignorance. If Professor Bell had known how difficult a task he was attempting, he would never have given us the telephone.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 178.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Bell (35)  |  Alexander Graham Bell (37)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Gold (101)  |  Golden (47)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Professor (133)  |  Task (152)  |  Telephone (31)

There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.
Life (10 Oct 1949), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Detect (45)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Must (1525)  |  Openness (8)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seek (218)  |  Think (1122)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There must be some bond of union between mass and the chemical elements; and as the mass of a substance is ultimately expressed (although not absolutely, but only relatively) in the atom, a functional dependence should exist and be discoverable between the individual properties of the elements and their atomic weights. But nothing, from mushrooms to a scientific dependence can be discovered without looking and trying. So I began to look about and write down the elements with their atomic weights and typical properties, analogous elements and like atomic weights on separate cards, and soon this convinced me that the properties of the elements are in periodic dependence upon their atomic weights; and although I had my doubts about some obscure points, yet I have never doubted the universality of this law, because it could not possibly be the result of chance.
Principles of Chemistry (1905), Vol. 2, 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Bond (46)  |  Card (5)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Express (192)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mass (160)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Point (584)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Property (177)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Separate (151)  |  Soon (187)  |  Substance (253)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Union (52)  |  Universality (22)  |  Weight (140)  |  Write (250)

There never was a chip, it is said, that Bill Gates couldn’t slow down with a new batch of features.
In The Chicago Tribune (1 Feb 1998).
Science quotes on:  |  Chip (4)  |  Down (455)  |  Feature (49)  |  Gate (33)  |  Bill Gates (10)  |  New (1273)  |  Say (989)  |  Slow (108)

Arthur Stanley Eddington quote: There was a time when we wanted to be told what an electron is. The question was never answered.
Background image credit: Lu Viatour, www.lucnix.be (source)
There was a time when we wanted to be told what an electron is. The question was never answered. No familiar conceptions can be woven around the electron; it belongs to the waiting list.
The Nature Of The Physical World (1928), 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Belong (168)  |  Conception (160)  |  Electron (96)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Question (649)  |  Time (1911)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Want (504)  |  Weave (21)

There was one quality of mind which seemed to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him [Charles Darwin] to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions pass unnoticed. Everybody notices a fact as an exception when it is striking or frequent, but he had a special instinct for arresting an exception. A point apparently slight and unconnected with his present work is passed over by many a man almost unconsciously with some half-considered explanation, which is in fact no explanation. It was just these things that he seized on to make a start from. In a certain sense there is nothing special in this procedure, many discoveries being made by means of it. I only mention it because, as I watched him at work, the value of this power to an experimenter was so strongly impressed upon me.
In Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1908), 94-95.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biography (254)  |  Certain (557)  |  Consider (428)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Exception (74)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Pass (241)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Quality (139)  |  Sense (785)  |  Special (188)  |  Start (237)  |  Striking (48)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unconnected (10)  |  Value (393)  |  Watch (118)  |  Work (1402)

There was rock to the left and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between
And thrice he heard a breech bolt snick, tho never a man was seen.
In 'Ballad of East and West', Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads (1893), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Bolt (11)  |  Lean (7)  |  Left (15)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Right (473)  |  Rock (176)  |  Thorn (6)

There was wildlife, untouched, a jungle at the border of the sea, never seen by those who floated on the opaque roof.
Describing his early experience, in 1936, when a fellow naval officer, Philippe Tailliez, gave him goggles to see below the Mediterranean Sea surface.
Quoted in 'Sport: Poet of the Depths', Time (28 Mar 1960)
Science quotes on:  |  Border (10)  |  Early (196)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Float (31)  |  Floating (4)  |  Goggles (2)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Mediterranean Sea (6)  |  Officer (12)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Roof (14)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Surface (223)  |  Untouched (5)  |  Wildlife (16)

There will always be dreams grander or humbler than your own, but there will never be a dream exactly like your own...for you are unique and more wondrous than you know!
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  Exactly (14)  |  Grand (29)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Unique (72)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wondrous (22)

These are some of the things wilderness can do for us. That is the reason we need to put into effect, for its preservation, some other principle that the principles of exploitation or “usefulness” or even recreation. We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.
Letter (3 Dec 1960) written to David E. Pesonen of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Collected in 'Coda: Wilderness Letter', The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West (1969), 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Country (269)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drive (61)  |  Edge (51)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Geography (39)  |  Hope (321)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reassure (7)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Sanity (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wilderness (57)

These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story—a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination.
In The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (1992), xv.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Answer (389)  |  Art (680)  |  Become (821)  |  Creator (97)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Find (1014)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Maker (34)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Order (638)  |  Random (42)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Simple (426)  |  Story (122)

They said I’d never build it, that if I built it, it wouldn’t fly; that if it flew, I couldn’t sell it. Well, I did, and it did, and I could.
About critics of his Learjet airplane announced in 1963. As quoted by C.P. Gilmore, 'Hard-Nosed Gambler in the Plane Game', (1966). Collected in Max Gunther, The Very, Very Rich and How They Got That Way: The Spectacular Success (1972, 2010) 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Build (211)  |  Fly (153)  |  Jet (4)  |  Sell (15)

They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it... and it’s worked out pretty well so far. I present to you the newest in Stark Industries’ Freedom line. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee, the bad guys won’t even wanna come out of their caves. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration... the Jericho.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Bad (185)  |  Best (467)  |  Cave (17)  |  Chain (51)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Dad (4)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Guy (5)  |  Industry (159)  |  Lady (12)  |  Let (64)  |  Line (100)  |  New (1273)  |  Personally (7)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Present (630)  |  Pretty (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Stark (3)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Work (1402)

Think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one: you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn't be imagined without it.
In The Golden Compass (1995, 2001), 372-373.
Science quotes on:  |  Adam And Eve (5)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Equation (138)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Imaginary Number (6)  |  Include (93)  |  Minus One (4)  |  Number (710)  |  Proof (304)  |  Root (121)  |  See (1094)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)

Thinking must never submit itself, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, if not to facts themselves, because, for it, to submit would be to cease to be.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Cease (81)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Must (1525)  |  Party (19)  |  Passion (121)  |  Preconceived (3)  |  Submit (21)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Whatever (234)

This [the fact that the pursuit of mathematics brings into harmonious action all the faculties of the human mind] accounts for the extraordinary longevity of all the greatest masters of the Analytic art, the Dii Majores of the mathematical Pantheon. Leibnitz lived to the age of 70; Euler to 76; Lagrange to 77; Laplace to 78; Gauss to 78; Plato, the supposed inventor of the conic sections, who made mathematics his study and delight, who called them the handles or aids to philosophy, the medicine of the soul, and is said never to have let a day go by without inventing some new theorems, lived to 82; Newton, the crown and glory of his race, to 85; Archimedes, the nearest akin, probably, to Newton in genius, was 75, and might have lived on to be 100, for aught we can guess to the contrary, when he was slain by the impatient and ill mannered sergeant, sent to bring him before the Roman general, in the full vigour of his faculties, and in the very act of working out a problem; Pythagoras, in whose school, I believe, the word mathematician (used, however, in a somewhat wider than its present sense) originated, the second founder of geometry, the inventor of the matchless theorem which goes by his name, the pre-cognizer of the undoubtedly mis-called Copernican theory, the discoverer of the regular solids and the musical canon who stands at the very apex of this pyramid of fame, (if we may credit the tradition) after spending 22 years studying in Egypt, and 12 in Babylon, opened school when 56 or 57 years old in Magna Græcia, married a young wife when past 60, and died, carrying on his work with energy unspent to the last, at the age of 99. The mathematician lives long and lives young; the wings of his soul do not early drop off, nor do its pores become clogged with the earthy particles blown from the dusty highways of vulgar life.
In Presidential Address to the British Association, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), 658.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Age (509)  |  Aid (101)  |  Akin (5)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Apex (6)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Art (680)  |  Aught (6)  |  Babylon (7)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blow (45)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Called (9)  |  Canon (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Clog (5)  |  Conic Section (8)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Copernican Theory (3)  |  Credit (24)  |  Crown (39)  |  Delight (111)  |  Die (94)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Early (196)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Energy (373)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fame (51)  |  Founder (26)  |  Full (68)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guess (67)  |  Handle (29)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Highway (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Impatient (4)  |  Invent (57)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Last (425)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Manner (62)  |  Marry (11)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Musical (10)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Originate (39)  |  Pantheon (2)  |  Particle (200)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Pore (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Pyramid (9)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Race (278)  |  Regular (48)  |  Roman (39)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Second (66)  |  Send (23)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sergeant (2)  |  Solid (119)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spending (24)  |  Stand (284)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Undoubtedly (3)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wing (79)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

This [the opening of the Vatican City radio station built by Marconi earlier in 1931] was a new demonstration of the harmony between science and religion that each fresh conquest of science ever more luminously confirms, so that one may say that those who speak of the incompatibility of science and religion either make science say that which it never said or make religion say that which it never taught.
Address to Pontifical Academy of Sciences (20 Dec 1931).In Associated Press, 'Pope Sees Harmony in Faith and Science', New York Times (21 Dec 1931), p.9. The pontiff said the opening of the radio station was “crowned by the publication of a radiophonic newspaper.”
Science quotes on:  |  City (87)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Incompatibility (3)  |  Luminous (19)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Radio (60)  |  Religion (369)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Station (30)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Vatican (3)

This speaker reminds me of my childhood in Budapest. There were gypsy magicians who came to town to entertain us children. But as I recollect, there was one important difference: the gypsy only seemed to violate the laws of nature, he never really violated them!
As quoted by William R. Sears in 'Some Recollections of Theodore von Kármán', Address to the Symposium in Memory of Theodore von Kármán, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, National Meeting (13-14 May 1964), Washington, D.C. Printed in Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (Mar 1965), 13>, No. 1, 178. These are likely not verbatim words of Karman, but as recollected by Sears giving an example of von Kármán’s biting anecdotes at public meetings when criticizing a paper he thought really misleading “pseudoscience.”
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Children (201)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Difference (355)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Entertainment (19)  |  Gypsy (2)  |  Important (229)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Magician (15)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reality (274)  |  Recollection (12)  |  Reminder (13)  |  Speaker (6)  |  Town (30)  |  Violation (7)

This Universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on government contract.
The Number of the Beast (1980), 14. In Carl C. Gaither, Physically Speaking (1997), 340.
Science quotes on:  |  Government (116)  |  Sense (785)  |  Universe (900)

Those who are enamoured of practice without science, are like the pilot who embarks in a ship without rudder or compass and who is never certain where he is going.
From original Italian: “Quelli che s'innamorano della pratica senza la diligenza, ovvero scienza, per dir meglio,sono come i nocchieri, che entrano in mare sopra nave senza timone o bussola, che mai hanno certezza dove si vadano,” in Trattato Della Pittura (Treatise on Painting) (1817), Part 2, 69. Translated in Anthony Lejeune, The Concise Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (2001), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Compass (37)  |  Embark (7)  |  Love (328)  |  Pilot (13)  |  Practice (212)  |  Rudder (4)  |  Sail (37)  |  Ship (69)

Those who dwell as scientists … among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
In The Sense of Wonder (1956, 1965), 88-89.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Dwell (19)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endure (21)  |  Find (1014)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Strength (139)  |  Weary (11)  |  Will (2350)

Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it; but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made), much may be hoped.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 95. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 92-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Ant (34)  |  Bee (44)  |  Business (156)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Closer (43)  |  Cobweb (6)  |  Course (413)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Field (378)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gather (76)  |  History (716)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Memory (144)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Power (771)  |  Rational (95)  |  Research (753)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Spider (14)  |  Substance (253)  |  Transform (74)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)

Thou, youthful seeker after knowledge, investigate and experiment and never desist therefrom, for thou willst harvest, fruits a thousand-fold.
Epigraph, in Paul Walden, Salts, Acids, and Bases: Electrolytes: Stereochemistry (1929), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Seeker (8)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Youth (109)

Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by the help of various machines answering the same end, it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous, and she needs no counterpoise when she makes limbs proper for motion in the bodies of animals.
W. An. IV. 184a (7). Translated by Jean Paul Richter, in 'Physiology', The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci: Compiled and Edited from the Original Manuscripts (1883), Vol. 2, 126, selection 837.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Body (557)  |  Devising (7)  |  End (603)  |  Help (116)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Invention (400)  |  Limb (9)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Simple (426)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Various (205)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

Though the parallel is not complete, it is safe to say that science will never touch them unaided by its practical applications. Its wonders may be catalogued for purposes of education, they may be illustrated by arresting experiments, by numbers and magnitudes which startle or fatigue the imagination but they will form no familiar portion of the intellectual furniture of ordinary men unless they be connected, however remotely, with the conduct of ordinary life.
Decadence (1908), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Connect (126)  |  Education (423)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Form (976)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Life (1870)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Number (710)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Portion (86)  |  Practical (225)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Safe (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Touch (146)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)

Three ways have been taken to account for it [racial differences]: either that they are the posterity of Ham, who was cursed; or that God at first created two kinds of men, one black and another white; or that by the heat of the sun the skin is scorched, and so gets the sooty hue. This matter has been much canvassed among naturalists, but has never been brought to any certain issue.
In James Boswell, London Journal, 1762-1763, as First Published in 1950 from the Original Manuscript (1956), 251.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Black (46)  |  Certain (557)  |  Color (155)  |  Create (245)  |  Curse (20)  |  Difference (355)  |  First (1302)  |  God (776)  |  Ham (2)  |  Heat (180)  |  Kind (564)  |  Matter (821)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Race (278)  |  Scorch (2)  |  Skin (48)  |  Soot (11)  |  Study (701)  |  Sun (407)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)

Through the magic of motion pictures, someone who’s never left Peoria knows the softness of a Paris spring, the color of a Nile sunset, the sorts of vegetation one will find along the upper Amazon and that Big Ben has not yet gone digital.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Amazon (11)  |  Color (155)  |  Digital (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leave (138)  |  Magic (92)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nile (5)  |  Paris (11)  |  Picture (148)  |  Softness (2)  |  Someone (24)  |  Sort (50)  |  Spring (140)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Through (846)  |  Upper (4)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Will (2350)

Albert Einstein quote: Mistrust of every kind of authority
Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment–an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections.
In P. A. Schilpp, (ed.), Part I, 'Autobiographical Notes', Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949, 1959), Vol. 1, 5. Translated by the P.A. Schilpp, from Einstein’s original German manuscript, written at age 67, (p.2, 4): “Durch Lesen populärwissenschaftlicher Bücher kam ich bald zu der Ueberzeugung, dass vieles in den Erzählungen der Bibel nicht wahr sein konnte. Die Folge war eine geradezu fanatische Freigeisterei, verbunden mit dem Eindruck, dass die Jugend vom Staate mit Vorbedacht belogen wird; es war ein niederschmetternder Eindruck. Das Misstrauen gegen jede Art Autorität erwuchs aus diesem Erlebnis, eine skeptische Einstellung gegen die Ueberzeugungen, welche in der jeweiligen sozialen Umwelt lebendig waren—eine Einstellung, die mich nicht wieder verlassen hat, wenn sie auch später durch bessere Einsicht in die kausalen Zusammenhänge ihre ursprünglische Schärfe verloren haben.”.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Author (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Bible (105)  |  Book (413)  |  Causal (7)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Couple (9)  |  Crush (19)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Environment (239)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fanatic (7)  |  Freethinking (2)  |  Grow (247)  |  Impression (118)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intentionally (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Late (119)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mistrust (4)  |  Orgy (3)  |  Popular (34)  |  Positively (4)  |  Reach (286)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Social (261)  |  Soon (187)  |  Specific (98)  |  State (505)  |  Story (122)  |  Temper (12)  |  Through (846)  |  Toward (45)  |  True (239)  |  Youth (109)

Thus the system of the world only oscillates around a mean state from which it never departs except by a very small quantity. By virtue of its constitution and the law of gravity, it enjoys a stability that can be destroyed only by foreign causes, and we are certain that their action is undetectable from the time of the most ancient observations until our own day. This stability in the system of the world, which assures its duration, is one of the most notable among all phenomena, in that it exhibits in the heavens the same intention to maintain order in the universe that nature has so admirably observed on earth for the sake of preserving individuals and perpetuating species.
'Sur l'Équation Séculaire de la Lune' (1786, published 1788). In Oeuvres complètes de Laplace, 14 Vols. (1843-1912), Vol. 11, 248-9, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Constitution (78)  |  The Constitution of the United States (7)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Duration (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intention (46)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravity (16)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Order (638)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Perpetuate (11)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sake (61)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  Stability (28)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Undetectable (3)  |  Universe (900)  |  Virtue (117)  |  World (1850)

Time, inexhaustible and ever accumulating his efficacy, can undoubtedly do much for the theorist in geology; but Force, whose limits we cannot measure, and whose nature we cannot fathom, is also a power never to be slighted: and to call in the one to protect us from the other, is equally presumptuous, to whichever of the two our superstition leans. To invoke Time, with ten thousand earthquakes, to overturn and set on edge a mountain-chain, should the phenomena indicate the change to have been sudden and not successive, would be ill excused by pleading the obligation of first appealing to known causes.
In History of the Inductive Sciences (1857), Vol. 3, 513-514.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chain (51)  |  Change (639)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Edge (51)  |  Equally (129)  |  Fathom (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Geology (240)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Inexhaustible (26)  |  Known (453)  |  Limit (294)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obligation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Protect (65)  |  Set (400)  |  Slighted (3)  |  Successive (73)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

Tis evident that all reasonings concerning matter of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that we can never infer the existence of one object from another, unless they be connected together, either mediately or immediately... Here is a billiard ball lying on the table, and another ball moving toward it with rapidity. They strike; and the ball which was formerly at rest now acquires a motion. This is as perfect an instance of the relation of cause and effect as any which we know, either by sensation or reflection.
An Abstract of A Treatise on Human Nature (1740), ed. John Maynard Keynes and Piero Sraffa (1938), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Billiard (4)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Collision (16)  |  Connect (126)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evident (92)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lying (55)  |  Matter (821)  |  Motion (320)  |  Object (438)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Strike (72)  |  Table (105)  |  Together (392)

To day we made the grand experiment of burning the diamond and certainly the phenomena presented were extremely beautiful and interesting… The Duke’s burning glass was the instrument used to apply heat to the diamond. It consists of two double convex lenses … The instrument was placed in an upper room of the museum and having arranged it at the window the diamond was placed in the focus and anxiously watched. The heat was thus continued for 3/4 of an hour (it being necessary to cool the globe at times) and during that time it was thought that the diamond was slowly diminishing and becoming opaque … On a sudden Sir H Davy observed the diamond to burn visibly, and when removed from the focus it was found to be in a state of active and rapid combustion. The diamond glowed brilliantly with a scarlet light, inclining to purple and, when placed in the dark, continued to burn for about four minutes. After cooling the glass heat was again applied to the diamond and it burned again though not for nearly so long as before. This was repeated twice more and soon after the diamond became all consumed. This phenomenon of actual and vivid combustion, which has never been observed before, was attributed by Sir H Davy to be the free access of air; it became more dull as carbonic acid gas formed and did not last so long.
Entry (Florence, 27 Mar 1814) in his foreign journal kept whilst on a continental tour with Sir Humphry Davy. In Michael Faraday, Bence Jones (ed.), The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 1, 119. Silvanus Phillips Thompson identifies the Duke as the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in Michael Faraday, His Life and Work (1901), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Acid (83)  |  Active (80)  |  Actual (118)  |  Air (366)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consist (223)  |  Convex (6)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Dark (145)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Dull (58)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Focus (36)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Gas (89)  |  Glass (94)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hour (192)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Last (425)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Museum (40)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Soon (187)  |  State (505)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Watch (118)  |  Window (59)

To go places and do things that have never been done before - that’s what living is all about.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Place (192)  |  Thing (1914)

To me there never has been a higher source of earthly honour or distinction than that connected with advances in science. I have not possessed enough of the eagle in my character to make a direct flight to the loftiest altitudes in the social world; and I certainly never endeavored to reach those heights by using the creeping powers of the reptile, who, in ascending, generally chooses the dirtiest path, because it is the easiest.
In Maturin Murray Ballou, Treasury of Thought (1894), 459.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Biography (254)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Character (259)  |  Choose (116)  |  Connect (126)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Enough (341)  |  Flight (101)  |  Honour (58)  |  Path (159)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Social (261)  |  World (1850)

To me there never has been a higher source of honour or distinction than that connected with advances in science. I have not possessed enough of the eagle in my character to make a direct flight to the loftiest altitudes in the social world; and I certainly never endeavored to reach those heights by using the creeping powers of the reptile, who in ascending, generally chooses the dirtiest path, because it is the easiest.
Consolations in Travel (1830), Dialogue 5, The Chemical Philosopher, 225.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Character (259)  |  Choose (116)  |  Connect (126)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Enough (341)  |  Flight (101)  |  Honour (58)  |  Path (159)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Social (261)  |  World (1850)

To Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude; asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and floras and faunas melt in air: the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy—the manifestations of life as well as the display of phenomena—are but the modulations of its rhythm.
Conclusion of Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion: Being a Course of Twelve Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the Season of 1862 (1863), 449.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Age (509)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Air (366)  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Application (257)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Constant (148)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Creation (350)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Eternally (4)  |  Exclude (8)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Flora (9)  |  Flux (21)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Melt (16)  |  Modulation (3)  |  Music (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Roll (41)  |  Same (166)  |  Shift (45)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Sum (103)  |  Sun (407)  |  Take Away (5)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Total (95)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wave (112)

To say that there is a soul in stones simply in order to account for their production is unsatisfactory: for their production is not like the reproduction of living plants, and of animals which have senses. For all these we see reproducing their own species from their own seeds; and a stone does not do this at all. We never see stones reproduced from stones; ... because a stone seems to have no reproductive power at all.
De Mineralibus (On Minerals) (c.1261-1263), Book I, tract I, chapter 4, trans. Dorothy Wyckoff (1967), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Animal (651)  |  Do (1905)  |  Geology (240)  |  Living (492)  |  Order (638)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Production (190)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Rock (176)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seed (97)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soul (235)  |  Species (435)  |  Stone (168)

To take one of the simplest cases of the dissipation of energy, the conduction of heat through a solid—consider a bar of metal warmer at one end than the other and left to itself. To avoid all needless complication, of taking loss or gain of heat into account, imagine the bar to be varnished with a substance impermeable to heat. For the sake of definiteness, imagine the bar to be first given with one half of it at one uniform temperature, and the other half of it at another uniform temperature. Instantly a diffusing of heat commences, and the distribution of temperature becomes continuously less and less unequal, tending to perfect uniformity, but never in any finite time attaining perfectly to this ultimate condition. This process of diffusion could be perfectly prevented by an army of Maxwell’s ‘intelligent demons’* stationed at the surface, or interface as we may call it with Prof. James Thomson, separating the hot from the cold part of the bar.
* The definition of a ‘demon’, according to the use of this word by Maxwell, is an intelligent being endowed with free will, and fine enough tactile and perceptive organisation to give him the faculty of observing and influencing individual molecules of matter.
In 'The Kinetic Theory of the Dissipation of Energy', Nature (1874), 9, 442.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Army (35)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Cold (115)  |  Complication (30)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conduction (8)  |  Consider (428)  |  Definition (238)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Distribution (51)  |  End (603)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Finite (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  Gain (146)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Loss (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  Metal (88)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perceptive (3)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Process (439)  |  Sake (61)  |  Solid (119)  |  Station (30)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Use (771)  |  Varnish (2)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

To the distracting occupations belong especially my lecture courses which I am holding this winter for the first time, and which now cost much more of my time than I like. Meanwhile I hope that the second time this expenditure of time will be much less, otherwise I would never be able to reconcile myself to it, even practical (astronomical) work must give far more satisfaction than if one brings up to B a couple more mediocre heads which otherwise would have stopped at A.
Letter to Friedrich Bessel (4 Dec 1808). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 415.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Cost (94)  |  Course (413)  |  Education (423)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  First (1302)  |  Hope (321)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Practical (225)  |  Reconcile (19)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Winter (46)  |  Work (1402)

To the electron—may it never be of any use to anyone.
[Favorite toast of hard-headed Cavendish scientists in the early 1900s.]
Anonymous
In Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, Crystal Fire. In Marc J. Madou, Fundamentals of Microfabrication: the Science of Miniaturization (2nd ed., 2002), 615.
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Early (196)  |  Electron (96)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard-Headed (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Toast (8)  |  Use (771)  |  Usefulness (92)

To the scientist, nature is always and merely a 'phenomenon,' not in the sense of being defective in reality, but in the sense of being a spectacle presented to his intelligent observation; whereas the events of history are never mere phenomena, never mere spectacles for contemplation, but things which the historian looks, not at, but through, to discern the thought within them.
The Idea of History (1946), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Discern (35)  |  Event (222)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Look (584)  |  Merely (315)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spectacles (10)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)

To the Victorian scientist, science was the pursuit of truth about Nature. In imagination, each new truth discovered could be ticked off on a list kept perhaps in a celestial planning office, so reducing by one the total number of truths to be discovered. But the practising scientist now knows that he is dealing with a living, growing thing. His task is never done.
Opening remark in article 'Musical Acoustics Today', New Scientist (1 Nov 1962), 16 No. 311, 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Celestial (53)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Growing (99)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Know (1538)  |  List (10)  |  Living (492)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Office (71)  |  Planning (21)  |  Practising (2)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Task (152)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tick (9)  |  Total (95)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Victorian (6)

To what purpose should People become fond of the Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy? … People very readily call Useless what they do not understand. It is a sort of Revenge… One would think at first that if the Mathematicks were to be confin’d to what is useful in them, they ought only to be improv'd in those things which have an immediate and sensible Affinity with Arts, and the rest ought to be neglected as a Vain Theory. But this would be a very wrong Notion. As for Instance, the Art of Navigation hath a necessary Connection with Astronomy, and Astronomy can never be too much improv'd for the Benefit of Navigation. Astronomy cannot be without Optics by reason of Perspective Glasses: and both, as all parts of the Mathematicks are grounded upon Geometry … .
Of the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning (1699)
Science quotes on:  |  Affinity (27)  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Become (821)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Connection (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Ground (222)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Notion (120)  |  Optics (24)  |  People (1031)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rest (287)  |  Revenge (10)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)  |  Useful (260)  |  Vain (86)  |  Wrong (246)

Traditions may be very important, but they can be extremely hampering as well, and whether or not tradition is of really much value I have never been certain. Of course when they are very fine, they do good, but it is very difficult of course ever to repeat the conditions under which good traditions are formed, so they may be and are often injurious and I think the greatest progress is made outside of traditions.
Quoted as the notations of an unnamed student in the auditorium when Councilman made impromptu biographical remarks at his last lecture as a teacher of undergraduates in medicine (19 Dec 1921). As quoted in obituary, 'William Thomas Councilman', by Harvey Cushing, Science (30 Jun 1933), 77, No. 2009, 613-618. Reprinted in National Academy Biographical Memoirs, Vol. 18, 159-160. The transcribed lecture was published privately in a 23-page booklet, A Lecture Delivered to the Second-Year Class of the Harvard Medical School at the Conclusion of the Course in Pathology, Dec. 19, 1921.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Condition (362)  |  Course (413)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fine (37)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hamper (7)  |  Hampering (2)  |  Important (229)  |  Injurious (14)  |  Injury (36)  |  Outside (141)  |  Progress (492)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Value (393)

True, no one can absolutely control the direction of his life; but each person can certainly influence it. The armchair explorers who complain that they never got their “one lucky shot” were never really infected by the incurable drive to explore. Those who have the bug—go.
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Armchair (7)  |  Bug (10)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Complain (10)  |  Control (182)  |  Direction (185)  |  Drive (61)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Incurable (10)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Luck (44)  |  Person (366)

Truths are immortal, my dear friend; they are immortal like God! What we call a falsity is like a fruit; it has a certain number of days; it is bound to decay. Whereas, what we call truth is like gold; days, months, even centuries can hide gold, can overlook it but they can never make it decay.
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Century (319)  |  Certain (557)  |  Decay (59)  |  Falsity (16)  |  Friend (180)  |  Fruit (108)  |  God (776)  |  Gold (101)  |  Hide (70)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Month (91)  |  Number (710)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Truth (1109)

Twin sister of natural and revealed religion, and of heavenly birth, science will never belie her celestial origin, nor cease to sympathize with all that emanates from the same pure home. Human ignorance and prejudice may for a time seem to have divorced what God has joined together; but human ignorance and prejudice shall at length pass away, and then science and religion shall be seen blending their particolored rays into one beautiful bow of light, linking heaven to earth and earth to heaven.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Belie (3)  |  Birth (154)  |  Blend (9)  |  Bow (15)  |  Cease (81)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Divorce (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emanate (3)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavenly (8)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Join (32)  |  Length (24)  |  Light (635)  |  Link (48)  |  Linking (8)  |  Natural (810)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pass (241)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Pure (299)  |  Ray (115)  |  Religion (369)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Same (166)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sister (8)  |  Sympathize (2)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Twin (16)  |  Will (2350)

Twitching occurs in all parts that can stretch, but never occurs in bones and cartilages, because bones and cartilages do not stretch in any way.
As quoted in Robert Taylor, White Coat Tales: Medicine's Heroes, Heritage, and Misadventures (2010), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Bone (101)  |  Cartilage (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Occur (151)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Twitch (2)  |  Way (1214)

Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find it, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain.
As quoted in Peter Pešic, Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science (2001), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hard (246)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Will (2350)

Victory [in war] is the beautiful, bright-coloured flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed. (1899)
In The River War (2004), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Bright (81)  |  Flower (112)  |  Stem (31)  |  Transport (31)  |  Victory (40)  |  War (233)

We are as remote from adequate explanation of the nature and causes of mechanical evolution of the hard parts of animals as we were when Aristotle first speculated on this subject … I think it is possible that we may never fathom all the causes of mechanical evolution or of the origin of new mechanical characters, but shall have to remain content with observing the modes of mechanical evolution, just as embryologists and geneticists are observing the modes of development, from the fertilized ovum to the mature individual, without in the least understanding either the cause or the nature of the process of development which goes on under their eyes every day
From 'Orthogenesis as observed from paleontological evidence beginning in the year 1889', American Naturalist (1922) 56, 141-142. As quoted and cited in 'G.G. Simpson, Paleontology, and the Modern Synthesis', collected in Ernst Mayr, William B. Provine (eds.), The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology (1998), 171.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Cause (561)  |  Character (259)  |  Development (441)  |  Embryologist (3)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fathom (15)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Geneticist (16)  |  Hard (246)  |  Individual (420)  |  Mature (17)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mode (43)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Ovum (4)  |  Possible (560)  |  Process (439)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Subject (543)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understanding (527)

We are as yet got little farther than to the surface of things: yet ought we not to be discouraged; though we can never hope to attain to the complete knowledge of the texture, or constituent frame and nature of bodies, yet may we reasonably expect by this method of experiments, to make farther and farther advances abundantly sufficient to reward our pains.
In 'Preface', Statical Essays: Containing Hæmastatics (1769), Vol. 2, ii.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Attain (126)  |  Body (557)  |  Complete (209)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Discourage (14)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Farther (51)  |  Frame (26)  |  Hope (321)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pain (144)  |  Reward (72)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Surface (223)  |  Texture (8)  |  Thing (1914)

We are at that very point in time when a four-hundred-year-old age is rattling in its deathbed and another is struggling to be born. A shifting of culture, science, society and institutions enormously greater and swifter than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, lies the possibility of regeneration of individuality, liberty, community and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another and with the divine intelligence such as the world has always dreamed.
Birth of the Chaordic Age (1999), 310-311.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Community (111)  |  Culture (157)  |  Divine (112)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Greater (288)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Known (453)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Lie (370)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Point (584)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Regeneration (5)  |  Shift (45)  |  Society (350)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Certainly (185)  |  DNA (81)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Grain (50)  |  Greater (288)  |  Human (1512)  |  Include (93)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Potential (75)  |  Sand (63)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Will (2350)

We are in a position similar to that of a mountaineer who is wandering over uncharted spaces, and never knows whether behind the peak which he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up.
In Max Planck and James Vincent Murphy (trans.), Where is Science Going?, (1932), 200.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Higher (37)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mountaineer (3)  |  Peak (20)  |  Scale (122)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Uncharted (10)  |  Wandering (6)

We are never in search of things, but always in search of the search.
Pensées No. 135. As cited in Eric Voegeli, From Enlightenment to Revolution (1975), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Search (175)  |  Thing (1914)

We are once for all adapted to the military status. A millennium of peace would not breed the fighting disposition out of our bone and marrow, and a function so ingrained and vital will never consent to die without resistance, and will always find impassioned apologists and idealizers.
From 'Remarks at The Peace Banquet' (7 Oct 1904), Boston, on the closing day of the World’s Peace Congress. Printed in Atlantic Monthly (Dec 1904), 845-846. Collected in Essays in Religion and Morality (1982), Vol. 9, 121.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Bone (101)  |  Breed (26)  |  Consent (14)  |  Die (94)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Fighting (2)  |  Find (1014)  |  Function (235)  |  Impassioned (2)  |  Ingrained (5)  |  Marrow (5)  |  Military (45)  |  Millennium (5)  |  Peace (116)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Status (35)  |  Vital (89)  |  Will (2350)

We are very lucky to be living in an age in which we are still making discoveries. It is like the discovery of America—you only discover it once. The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. It is very exciting, it is marvelous, but this excitement will have to go.
From transcript of the seventh Messenger Lecture, Cornell University (1964), 'Seeking New Laws.' Published in The Character of Physical Law (1965, reprint 2001), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Law (913)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lucky (13)  |  Making (300)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Still (614)  |  Will (2350)

We call the one side [of humanity] religion, and we call the other science. Religion is always right. ... Science is always wrong; it is the very artifice of men. Science can never solve one problem without raising ten more problems.
Speech at the Einstein Dinner, Savoy Hotel, London (28 Oct 1930). Reproduced in George Bernard Shaw and Warren Sylvester Smith (ed.), The Religious Speeches of George Bernard Shaw (1963), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Artifice (4)  |  Call (781)  |  Humanity (186)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Religion (369)  |  Right (473)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Side (236)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Wrong (246)

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens ... The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.
From Mysterium Cosmographicum. Quote as translated in Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980, 1985), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Bird (163)  |  Creation (350)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fathom (15)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Lacking (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Order (638)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Precision (72)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Richness (15)  |  Secret (216)  |  Singing (19)  |  Song (41)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Why (491)

We had a clear, unmistakable, specific objective. Although at first there was considerable doubt whether we could attain this objective, there was never any doubt about what it was. Consequently the people in responsible positions were able to tailor their every action to its accomplishment.
In And Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project (1962), 414.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Action (342)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Clear (111)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Doubt (314)  |  First (1302)  |  Manhattan Project (15)  |  Objective (96)  |  People (1031)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Specific (98)  |  Tailor (3)  |  Unmistakable (6)

We had various kinds of tape-recorded concerts and popular music. But by the end of the flight what we listened to most was Russian folk songs. We also had recordings of nature sounds: thunder, rain, the singing of birds. We switched them on most frequently of all, and we never grew tired of them. It was as if they returned us to Earth.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Concert (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Flight (101)  |  Folk (10)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Grow (247)  |  Kind (564)  |  Listen (81)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Popular (34)  |  Rain (70)  |  Record (161)  |  Recording (13)  |  Return (133)  |  Russian (3)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Song (41)  |  Sound (187)  |  Switch (10)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Tired (13)  |  Various (205)

We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.
In Strength to Love (1963).
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Fear (212)  |  Find (1014)  |  Give (208)  |  God (776)  |  Mitigate (5)  |  Produce (117)

We have never had another man like him [Charles Kettering] in America. He is the most willing man to do things I have ever seen. Benjamin Franklin was a little like him. Both had horse sense and love of fun. If a fellow goes to school long enough he gets frozen in his thinking. He is not free any more. But Ket has always been free.
In book review, T.A. Boyd, 'Charles F. Kettering: Prophet of Progress', Science (30 Jan 1959), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Both (496)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Free (239)  |  Freeze (6)  |  Fun (42)  |  Horse (78)  |  Horse Sense (4)  |  Charles F. Kettering (70)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Willing (44)

We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions.
We suffer not from overproduction but from undercirculation. You have heard of technocracy. I wish I had those fellows for my competitors. I'd like to take the automobile it is said they predicted could be made now that would last fifty years. Even if never used, this automobile would not be worth anything except to a junkman in ten years, because of the changes in men's tastes and ideas. This desire for change is an inherent quality in human nature, so that the present generation must not try to crystallize the needs of the future ones.
We have been measuring too much in terms of the dollar. What we should do is think in terms of useful materials—things that will be of value to us in our daily life.
In 'Quotation Marks: Against Technocracy', New York Times (1 Han 1933), E4.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Change (639)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Competitor (4)  |  Condition (362)  |  Construction (114)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Crystallization (2)  |  Crystallize (12)  |  Daily (91)  |  Daily Life (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Fit (139)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Junk (6)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Material (366)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Taste (93)  |  Technocracy (2)  |  Ten (3)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Try (296)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

We know that there exist true propositions which we can never formally prove. What about propositions whose proofs require arguments beyond our capabilities? What about propositions whose proofs require millions of pages? Or a million, million pages? Are there proofs that are possible, but beyond us?
Mathematical Mysteries (1999), 295.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Capability (44)  |  Exist (458)  |  Know (1538)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Require (229)

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Experience (494)  |  Learn (672)

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
In Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859, 1861), 349.
Science quotes on:  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Success (327)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)

We love to discover in the cosmos the geometrical forms that exist in the depths of our consciousness. The exactitude of the proportions of our monuments and the precision of our machines express a fundamental character of our mind. Geometry does not exist in the earthly world. It has originated in ourselves. The methods of nature are never so precise as those of man. We do not find in the universe the clearness and accuracy of our thought. We attempt, therefore, to abstract from the complexity of phenomena some simple systems whose components bear to one another certain relations susceptible of being described mathematically.
In Man the Unknown (1935), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Component (51)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Depth (97)  |  Describe (132)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exact (75)  |  Exactitude (10)  |  Exist (458)  |  Express (192)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Love (328)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monument (45)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Originate (39)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Relation (166)  |  Simple (426)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  System (545)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

We may as well cut out group theory. That is a subject that will never be of any use in physics.
Discussing mathematics curriculum reform at Princeton University (1910), as quoted in Abraham P. Hillman, Gerald L. Alexanderson, Abstract Algebra: A First Undergraduate Course (1994), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Curriculum (11)  |  Cut (116)  |  Cut Out (2)  |  Group Theory (5)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

We may lay it down that a happy person never phantasises, only an unsatisfied one... The motive forces of phantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single phantasy is the fulfilment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality. These motivating wishes vary according to the sex, character and circumstances of the person who is having the phantasy; but they fall naturally into two main groups. They are either ambitious wishes, which serve to elevate the subject's personality; or they are erotic ones. It was shocking when Nietzsche said this, but today it is commonplace; our historical position—and no end to it is in sight—is that of having to philosophise without 'foundations'.
Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming (1906), In James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychcological Works of Sigmund Freud (1959), Vol 9, 146-7.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Character (259)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Correction (42)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Happy (108)  |  Historical (70)  |  Motive (62)  |  Person (366)  |  Personality (66)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Reality (274)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)  |  Wish (216)

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.
The Physiology of Common Life (1860), Vol. 2, 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Must (1525)  |  Proof (304)

We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body.
The Pilgrimage. Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 239
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Dream (222)  |  Meal (19)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Provide (79)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stop (89)

We must…never be too much absorbed by the thought we are pursuing, nor deceive ourselves about the value of our ideas or scientific theories.
In An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), 167, as translated by Henry Copley Greene. From the original French by Claude Bernard: “On ne doit donc jamais être trop absorbé par la pensée qu’on poursuit, ni s’illusionner sur la valeur de ses idées ou de ses théories scientifiques.” (1865), 294.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
The Outermost House (1928), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attain (126)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Finish (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Glass (94)  |  Hear (144)  |  Image (97)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Survey (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tragic (19)  |  Universal (198)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

We need only reflect on what has been prov'd at large, that we are never sensible of any connexion betwixt causes and effects, and that 'tis only by our experience of their constant conjunction, we can arrive at any knowledge of this relation.
A Treatise on Human Nature (1739-40), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1888), book 1, part 4, section 165, 247.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Conjunction (12)  |  Connection (171)  |  Constant (148)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experience (494)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Proof (304)  |  Relationship (114)

We never attempted to decipher the meaning of life; we wanted only to testify to the miracle of life.
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Decipher (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Testify (7)  |  Want (504)

We never know the Worth of Water till the Well is Dry.
Proverb collected by Fuller, No. 5451 in Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs: Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British (1732), 237. Compare with Benjamin Franklin, published later, “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water”, in Poor Richard’s Almanac (1757, 1900), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Dry (65)  |  Know (1538)  |  Water (503)  |  Worth (172)

We never really see time. We see only clocks. If you say this object moves, what you really mean is that this object is here when the hand of your clock is here, and so on. We say we measure time with clocks, but we see only the hands of the clocks, not time itself. And the hands of a clock are a physical variable like any other. So in a sense we cheat because what we really observe are physical variables as a function of other physical variables, but we represent that as if everything is evolving in time.
Quoted by Tim Folger in 'Newsflash: Time May Not Exist', Discover Magazine (Jun 2007).
Science quotes on:  |  Cheat (13)  |  Clock (51)  |  Everything (489)  |  Function (235)  |  Mean (810)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Represent (157)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variable (37)

We ourselves introduce that order and regularity in the appearance which we entitle ‘nature’. We could never find them in appearances had we not ourselves, by the nature of our own mind, originally set them there.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Entitle (3)  |  Find (1014)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Originally (7)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Set (400)

We reached the village of Watervliet, [New York] … and here we crossed the Hudson in a horse-tow-boat. Having never witnessed, except in America, this ingenious contrivance for crossing a river, I shall explain to you what it is … On each side of the boat, and standing on a revolving platform constructed a foot below the surface of the deck, is placed a horse, harnessed and attached to a splinter-bar which is fastened to the boat, so as to keep him in his proper position. When every thing is ready for departure, the animal is made to walk, and by the action of his feet puts the platform in motion, which, communicating with the paddle-wheels, gives them their rotatory evolution; and by this means the boat is propelled in any direction in which the helmsman wishes to go.
In Letter VIII, to a friend in England, from Lockport, New York (25 Jul 1831), collected in Narrative of a Tour in North America (1834), Vol. 1, 184-184.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  America (143)  |  Animal (651)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Boat (17)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Direction (185)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explain (334)  |  Ferry (4)  |  Harness (25)  |  Horse (78)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Platform (3)  |  Proper (150)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Reach (286)  |  Revolving (2)  |  River (140)  |  Side (236)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Witness (57)

We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
In Samuel Butler and Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1920), Vol. 2, 298.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Interest (416)  |  Money (178)  |  People (1031)  |  Time (1911)

We shall never understand each other until we reduce the language to seven words.
In Kahlil Gibran: The Collected Works (2007), 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Language (308)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Understand (648)  |  Word (650)

We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.
Conclusion of Letter (3 Dec 1960) written to David E. Pesonen of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Collected in 'Coda: Wilderness Letter', The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West (1969), 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Country (269)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drive (61)  |  Edge (51)  |  Geography (39)  |  Hope (321)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Part (235)  |  Reassure (7)  |  Sanity (9)  |  Simply (53)  |  Wild (96)

We spend long hours discussing the curious situation that the two great bodies of biological knowledge, genetics and embryology, which were obviously intimately interrelated in development, had never been brought together in any revealing way. An obvious difficulty was that the most favorable organisms for genetics, Drosophila as a prime example, were not well suited for embryological study, and the classical objects of embryological study, sea urchins and frogs as examples, were not easily investigated genetically. What might we do about it? There were two obvious approaches: one to learn more about the genetics of an embryologically favourable organism, the other to better understand the development of Drosophila. We resolved to gamble up to a year of our lives on the latter approach, this in Ephrussi’s laboratory in Paris which was admirably equipped for tissue culture, tissue or organ transplantation, and related techniques.
In 'Recollections', Annual Review of Biochemistry, 1974, 43, 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Better (493)  |  Biological (137)  |  Classical (49)  |  Culture (157)  |  Curious (95)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drosophila (10)  |  Embryology (18)  |  Boris Ephrussi (4)  |  Equipped (17)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Frog (44)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hour (192)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Research (753)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Urchin (3)  |  Situation (117)  |  Spend (97)  |  Study (701)  |  Technique (84)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been.
Address to the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond (1 Dec 1950). Quoted in James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Built to Last (1994, 1997), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Fail (191)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forget (125)  |  Medicine (392)  |  People (1031)  |  Profit (56)  |  Remember (189)  |  Try (296)

We were flying over America and suddenly I saw snow, the first snow we ever saw from orbit. I have never visited America, but I imagined that the arrival of autumn and winter is the same there as in other places, and the process of getting ready for them is the same. And then it struck me that we are all children of our Earth.
As quoted in Kevin W. Kelley (ed.), The Home Planet (1988). Source cited as “submitted by Lev Demin”.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Arrival (15)  |  Autumn (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Place (192)  |  Process (439)  |  Ready (43)  |  Same (166)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Snow (39)  |  Strike (72)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Visit (27)  |  Winter (46)

We will be misguided in our intentions if we point at one single thing and say that it will prevent war, unless, of course, that thing happens to be the will, the determination, and the resolve of people everywhere that nations will never again clash on the battlefield.
Opening address (7 Nov 1945) of Town Hall’s annual lecture series, as quoted in 'Gen. Groves Warns on Atom ‘Suicide’', New York Times (8 Nov 1945), 4. (Just three months before he spoke, two atom bombs dropped on Japan in Aug 1945 effectively ended WW II.)
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Battlefield (9)  |  Clash (10)  |  Course (413)  |  Determination (80)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Happen (282)  |  Intention (46)  |  Misguiding (2)  |  Nation (208)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Pointing (4)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)

We would never get away from it. … It’s bad enough as it is, but with the wireless telephone one could be called up at the opera, in church, in our beds. Where could one be free from interruption?
[Prediction about the cell phone made over a century ago.]
New York Times (23 Jan 1910), Sunday Magazine Section, 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Bed (25)  |  Call (781)  |  Cell Phone (6)  |  Century (319)  |  Church (64)  |  Enough (341)  |  Free (239)  |  Interruption (5)  |  Opera (3)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Telephone (31)

We’ve come a long way, we’ve come a long way and we never even left L.A.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Leave (138)  |  Long (778)  |  Way (1214)

Well-observed facts, though brought to light by passing theories, will never die; they are the material on which alone the house of science will at last be built.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Building (158)  |  Death (406)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  House (143)  |  Last (425)  |  Light (635)  |  Material (366)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Passing (76)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Will (2350)

What distinguishes the straight line and circle more than anything else, and properly separates them for the purpose of elementary geometry? Their self-similarity. Every inch of a straight line coincides with every other inch, and of a circle with every other of the same circle. Where, then, did Euclid fail? In not introducing the third curve, which has the same property—the screw. The right line, the circle, the screw—the representations of translation, rotation, and the two combined—ought to have been the instruments of geometry. With a screw we should never have heard of the impossibility of trisecting an angle, squaring the circle, etc.
From Letter (15 Feb 1852) to W.R. Hamilton, collected in Robert Perceval Graves, Life of W.R. Hamilton (1889), Vol. 3, 343.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Circle (117)  |  Coincide (6)  |  Combine (58)  |  Curve (49)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Fail (191)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Line (100)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Property (177)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Representation (55)  |  Right (473)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Screw (17)  |  Self (268)  |  Separate (151)  |  Similar (36)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Square (73)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Translation (21)  |  Trisect (2)  |  Two (936)

What I chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the strong disposition I observed in them [the mathematicians of Laputa] towards news and politics; perpetually inquiring into public affairs; giving their judgments in matters of state; and passionately disputing every inch of party opinion. I have indeed observed the same disposition among most of the mathematicians I have known in Europe, although I could never discover the least analogy between the two sciences.
In Gulliver's Travels, Part 8, chap. 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Altogether (9)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Europe (50)  |  Give (208)  |  Inch (10)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Least (75)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Party (19)  |  Passionately (3)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Politics (122)  |  Public Affairs (2)  |  Same (166)  |  State (505)  |  Strong (182)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)

What if angry vectors veer
Round your sleeping head, and form.
There’s never need to fear
Violence of the poor world’s abstract storm.
Poem, 'Lullaby: Smile in Sleep' (1957). In John D. Burt (ed.), The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren (1998), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Angry (10)  |  Fear (212)  |  Form (976)  |  Head (87)  |  Need (320)  |  Poor (139)  |  Round (26)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Storm (56)  |  Vector (6)  |  Veer (2)  |  Violence (37)  |  World (1850)

What is important is the gradual development of a theory, based on a careful analysis of the ... facts. ... Its first applications are necessarily to elementary problems where the result has never been in doubt and no theory is actually required. At this early stage the application serves to corroborate the theory. The next stage develops when the theory is applied to somewhat more complicated situations in which it may already lead to a certain extent beyond the obvious and familiar. Here theory and application corroborate each other mutually. Beyond lies the field of real success: genuine prediction by theory. It is well known that all mathematized sciences have gone through these successive stages of evolution.
'Formulation of the Economic Problem' in Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1964), 8. Reprinted in John Von Neumann, F. Bródy (ed.) and Tibor Vámos (ed.), The Neumann Compendium (2000), 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Certain (557)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Corroborate (2)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Early (196)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Next (238)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Problem (731)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Situation (117)  |  Stage (152)  |  Success (327)  |  Successive (73)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)

What is laid down, ordered, factual, is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.
As quoted, without source, in Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (1981, 2012), xxv.
Science quotes on:  |  Cup (7)  |  Down (455)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Enough (341)  |  Factual (8)  |  Laid (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordered (2)  |  Rim (5)  |  Spill (3)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Whole (756)

What is matter?—Never mind.
What is mind?—No matter.
A Short Cut to Metaphysics (1855), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)

What is possible can never be demonstrated to be false; and 'tis possible the course of nature may change, since we can conceive such a change. Nay, I will go farther, and assert, that he could not so much as prove by any probable arguments, that the future must be conformable to the past. All probable arguments are built on the supposition, that there is this conformity betwixt the future and the past, and therefore can never prove it. This conformity is a matter of fact, and if it must be proved, will admit of no proof but from experience. But our experience in the past can be a proof of nothing for the future, but upon a supposition, that there is a resemblance betwixt them. This therefore is a point, which can admit of no proof at all, and which we take for granted without any proof.
An Abstract of A Treatise on Human Nature (1740), ed. John Maynard Keynes and Piero Sraffa (1938), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Assert (69)  |  Change (639)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conformity (15)  |  Course (413)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  False (105)  |  Farther (51)  |  Future (467)  |  Grant (76)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Past (355)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Will (2350)

What is there about fire that's so lovely? ... It's perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent but never did. Or almost perpetual motion. ... What is fire? It's a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledegook about friction and molecules. But they don't really know.
[Fahrenheit 451 refers to the temperature at which book paper burns. In the short novel of this title 'firemen' burn books forbidden by the totalitaran regime.]
Fahrenheit 451 (1953, 1996), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Burn (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Friction (14)  |  Invention (400)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Novel (35)  |  Paper (192)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Short (200)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)

What is this subject, which may be called indifferently either mathematics or logic? Is there any way in which we can define it? Certain characteristics of the subject are clear. To begin with, we do not, in this subject, deal with particular things or particular properties: we deal formally with what can be said about any thing or any property. We are prepared to say that one and one are two, but not that Socrates and Plato are two, because, in our capacity of logicians or pure mathematicians, we have never heard of Socrates or Plato. A world in which there were no such individuals would still be a world in which one and one are two. It is not open to us, as pure mathematicians or logicians, to mention anything at all, because, if we do so we introduce something irrelevant and not formal.
In Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1920), 196-197.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Call (781)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Clear (111)  |  Deal (192)  |  Do (1905)  |  Formal (37)  |  Hear (144)  |  Individual (420)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Irrelevant (11)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logician (18)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  Open (277)  |  Particular (80)  |  Plato (80)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Say (989)  |   Socrates, (17)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

What is wanted in architecture, as in so many things, is a man. ... One suggestion might be made—no profession in England has done its duty until it has furnished a victim. ... Even our boasted navy never achieved a great victory until we shot an admiral. Suppose an architect were hanged? Terror has its inspiration, as well as competition.
Tancred: Or, The New Crusade (1907), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Architect (32)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Competition (45)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hang (46)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Man (2252)  |  Profession (108)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Victim (37)  |  Victory (40)  |  Want (504)

What of the future of this adventure? What will happen ultimately? We are going along guessing the laws; how many laws are we going to have to guess? I do not know. Some of my colleagues say that this fundamental aspect of our science will go on; but I think there will certainly not be perpetual novelty, say for a thousand years. This thing cannot keep on going so that we are always going to discover more and more new laws … It is like the discovery of America—you only discover it once. The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. Of course in the future there will be other interests … but there will not be the same things that we are doing now … There will be a degeneration of ideas, just like the degeneration that great explorers feel is occurring when tourists begin moving in on a territory.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965, 1994), 166.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Begin (275)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Course (413)  |  Degeneration (11)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guess (67)  |  Happen (282)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Say (989)  |  Territory (25)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tourist (6)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

What struck me most in England was the perception that only those works which have a practical tendency awake attention and command respect, while the purely scientific, which possess far greater merit are almost unknown. And yet the latter are the proper source from which the others flow. Practice alone can never lead to the discovery of a truth or a principle. In Germany it is quite the contrary. Here in the eyes of scientific men no value, or at least but a trifling one, is placed upon the practical results. The enrichment of science is alone considered worthy attention.
Letter to Michael Faraday (19 Dec 1844). In Bence Jones (ed.), The life and letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 2, 188-189.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Attention (196)  |  Awake (19)  |  Command (60)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Discovery (837)  |  England (43)  |  Enrichment (7)  |  Eye (440)  |  Flow (89)  |  Germany (16)  |  Greater (288)  |  Lead (391)  |  Merit (51)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perception (97)  |  Possess (157)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purely (111)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)

Whatever may have been imputed to some other studies under the notion of insignificancy and loss of time, yet these [mathematics], I believe, never caused repentance in any, except it was for their remissness in the prosecution of them.
In 'On the Usefulness of Mathematics', Works (1840), Vol. 2, 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Cause (561)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prosecution (2)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whatever (234)

Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap. For example she could not produce a horse if it were not preceded by all the other animals on which she ascends to the horse’s structure as if on the rungs of a ladder. Thus every one thing exists for the sake of all things and all for the sake of one; for the one is of course the all as well. Nature, despite her seeming diversity, is always a unity, a whole; and thus, when she manifests herself in any part of that whole, the rest must serve as a basis for that particular manifestation, and the latter must have a relationship to the rest of the system.
Jeremy Naydler (ed.), Goethe On Science: An Anthology of Goethe's Scientific Writings (1996), 60
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Basis (180)  |  Course (413)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Horse (78)  |  Ladder (18)  |  Leap (57)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sake (61)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Unity (81)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

Wheeler’s First Moral Principle: Never make a calculation until you know the answer. Make an estimate before every calculation, try a simple physical argument (symmetry! invariance! conservation!) before every derivation, guess the answer to every paradox and puzzle. Courage: No one else needs to know what the guess is. Therefore make it quickly, by instinct. A right guess reinforces this instinct. A wrong guess brings the refreshment of surprise. In either case life as a spacetime expert, however long, is more fun!
In E.F. Taylor and J.A. Wheeler, Spacetime Physics (1992), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Argument (145)  |  Bring (95)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Case (102)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Courage (82)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Expert (67)  |  First (1302)  |  Fun (42)  |  Guess (67)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Invariance (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Know The Answer (9)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Quickly (21)  |  Refreshment (3)  |  Reinforce (5)  |  Reinforcement (2)  |  Right (473)  |  Simple (426)  |  Spacetime (4)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Try (296)  |  Wrong (246)

When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won't one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.
Pensées d'un Biologiste (1939). Translated in The Substance of Man (1962), Chap. 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Ahead (21)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Current (122)  |  Error (339)  |  Future (467)  |  Gross (7)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Misunderstanding (13)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Prophetic (4)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

When Aloisio Galvani first stimulated the nervous fiber by the accidental contact of two heterogeneous metals, his contemporaries could never have anticipated that the action of the voltaic pile would discover to us, in the alkalies, metals of a silvery luster, so light as to swim on water, and eminently inflammable; or that it would become a powerful instrument of chemical analysis, and at the same time a thermoscope and a magnet.
In 'Introduction' Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1860), Vol. 1, 52, as translated by E.C. Otté.
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Action (342)  |  Alkali (6)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Become (821)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Contact (66)  |  Discover (571)  |  Fiber (16)  |  First (1302)  |  Luigi Galvani (2)  |  Inflammable (5)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Metal (88)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  Swim (32)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Voltaic (9)  |  Voltaic Pile (2)  |  Water (503)

When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God. For, as all right-thinking people were aware, lightning is sent by God to punish impiety or some other grave sin—the virtuous are never struck by lightning. Therefore if God wants to strike any one, Benjamin Franklin [and his lightning-rod] ought not to defeat His design; indeed, to do so is helping criminals to escape. But God was equal to the occasion, if we are to believe the eminent Dr. Price, one of the leading divines of Boston. Lightning having been rendered ineffectual by the “iron points invented by the sagacious Dr. Franklin,” Massachusetts was shaken by earthquakes, which Dr. Price perceived to be due to God’s wrath at the “iron points.” In a sermon on the subject he said,“In Boston are more erected than elsewhere in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God.” Apparently, however, Providence gave up all hope of curing Boston of its wickedness, for, though lightning-rods became more and more common, earthquakes in Massachusetts have remained rare.
In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 6-7.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Boston (7)  |  Both (496)  |  Common (447)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Design (203)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Escape (85)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  God (776)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hope (321)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Iron (99)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Lightning-Rod (2)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Price (57)  |  Providence (19)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Rare (94)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Right (473)  |  Sagacious (7)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sermon (9)  |  Sin (45)  |  Strike (72)  |  Subject (543)  |  Support (151)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Virtuous (9)  |  Want (504)  |  Wickedness (3)  |  Will (2350)

When Bonner writes that ‘natural selection for optimal feeding is then presumed to be the cause of non-motility in all forms,’ I can’t help suspecting that some plants might do even better if they could walk from shade to sun–but the inherited constraints of design never permitted a trial of this intriguing option.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Cause (561)  |  Constraint (13)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Feed (31)  |  Form (976)  |  Help (116)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Intriguing (4)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Optimal (4)  |  Option (10)  |  Permit (61)  |  Plant (320)  |  Presume (9)  |  Selection (130)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Trial (59)  |  Walk (138)  |  Write (250)

When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
In Is Shakespeare Dead?: From My Autobiography (1909), 127-128.
Science quotes on:  |  Brightest (12)  |  Cast (69)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Conscientious (7)  |  Dispassionate (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examination (102)  |  Examine (84)  |  Kind (564)  |  Maturity (14)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Sincerity (8)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Validity (50)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

When every fact, every present or past phenomenon of that universe, every phase of present or past life therein, has been examined, classified, and co-ordinated with the rest, then the mission of science will be completed. What is this but saying that the task of science can never end till man ceases to be, till history is no longer made, and development itself ceases?
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Cease (81)  |  Cessation (13)  |  Classification (102)  |  Completed (30)  |  Completion (23)  |  Coordination (11)  |  Development (441)  |  End (603)  |  Examination (102)  |  Fact (1257)  |  History (716)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mission (23)  |  Past (355)  |  Phase (37)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Rest (287)  |  Task (152)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

When experimental results are found to be in conflict with those of an earlier investigator, the matter is often taken too easily and disposed of for an instance by pointing out a possible source of error in the experiments of the predessessor, but without enquiring whether the error, if present, would be quantitatively sufficient to explain the discrepancy. I think that disagreement with former results should never be taken easily, but every effort should be made to find a true explanation. This can be done in many more cases than it actually is; and as a result, it can be done more easily by the man “on the spot” who is already familiar with the essential details. But it may require a great deal of imagination, and very often it will require supplementary experiments.
From 'August Krogh' in Festkrift Københavns Universitet 1950 (1950), 18, as cited by E. Snorrason, 'Krogh, Schack August Steenberg', in Charles Coulton Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1973), Vol 7, 501. The DSB quote is introduced, “All his life Krogh was more interested in physical than in chemiical problems in biology, and he explained his critical attitude thus.”
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Deal (192)  |  Detail (150)  |  Disagreement (14)  |  Discrepancy (7)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Earlier (9)  |  Ease (40)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Find (1014)  |  Former (138)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Source Of Error (2)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supplementary (4)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

When Galileo caused balls, the weights of which he had himself previously determined, to roll down an inclined plane; when Torricelli made the air carry a weight which he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite volume of water; or in more recent times, when Stahl changed metal into lime, and lime back into metal, by withdrawing something and then restoring it, a light broke upon all students of nature. They learned that reason has insight only into that which it produces after a plan of its own, and that it must not allow itself to be kept, as it were, in nature's leading-strings, but must itself show the way with principles of judgement based upon fixed laws, constraining nature to give answer to questions of reason's own determining. Accidental observations, made in obedience to no previously thought-out plan, can never be made to yield a necessary law, which alone reason is concerned to discover.
Critique of Pure Reason (1781), trans. Norman Kemp Smith (1929), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Air (366)  |  Alone (324)  |  Answer (389)  |  Back (395)  |  Ball (64)  |  Carry (130)  |  Concern (239)  |  Definite (114)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Insight (107)  |  Judgement (8)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Observation (593)  |  Plan (122)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recent (78)  |  Roll (41)  |  Show (353)  |  Something (718)  |  Georg Ernst Stahl (9)  |  Student (317)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |   Evangelista Torricelli, (6)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Yield (86)

When God makes his presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was—he only saw the brightness of the Lord.
In Adam Bede (1859), Vol. 1, 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Brightness (12)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Bush (11)  |  Feel (371)  |  God (776)  |  Heed (12)  |  Lord (97)  |  Moses (8)  |  Presence (63)  |  Religion (369)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Sort (50)  |  Through (846)

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty … but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
Quoted in David J. Darling, The Universal Book of Mathematics (2004). 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Finish (62)  |  Know (1538)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solution (282)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wrong (246)

When I arrived in California to join the faculty of the New University which opened in October 1891, it was near the end of the dry season and probably no rain had fallen for three or four months. The bare cracked adobe fields surrounding the new buildings ... offered a decidedly unpromising outlook... A month or two later, however, there was a magical transformation. With the advent of the autumn rains the whole country quickly turned green, and a profusion of liverworts such as I had never seen before appeared on the open ground... I soon realized that right in my own backyard, so to speak, was a wealth of material such as I had never imagined would be my good fortune to encounter. ... Such an invitation to make a comprehensive study of the structure and development of the liverworts could not be resisted; and the next three years were largely devoted to this work which finally resulted in the publication of 'The Mosses and Ferns' in 1895.
In The Structure and Development of Mosses and Ferns (Archegoniatae) (1905, 3rd ed. 1918, rev. 1928). Cited in William C. Steere, Obituary, 'Douglas Houghton Campbell', American Bryological and Lichenological Society, The Bryologist (1953), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Autumn (11)  |  Backyard (4)  |  Bare (33)  |  Book (413)  |  Building (158)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Country (269)  |  Development (441)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Dry (65)  |  Encounter (23)  |  End (603)  |  Fern (10)  |  Field (378)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Green (65)  |  Ground (222)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Invitation (12)  |  Material (366)  |  Month (91)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Offer (142)  |  Open (277)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Profusion (3)  |  Publication (102)  |  Rain (70)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Season (47)  |  Soon (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  University (130)  |  Unpromising (2)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

When I'm asked about the relevance to Black people of what I do, I take that as an affront. It presupposes that Black people have never been involved in exploring the heavens, but this is not so. Ancient African empires - Mali, Songhai, Egypt - had scientists, astronomers. The fact is that space and its resources belong to all of us, not to any one group.
In Current Biography Yearbook (1993), Vol. 54, 280.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  African (11)  |  African American (8)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Ask (420)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Belong (168)  |  Do (1905)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Group (83)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Involved (90)  |  People (1031)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Relevance (18)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Space (523)

When meditating over a disease, I never think of finding a remedy for it, but, instead, a means of preventing it.
From address (15 May 1884), to École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris. In Maurice Benjamin Strauss, Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), 451.
Science quotes on:  |  Disease (340)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Meditate (4)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Think (1122)

When one talked with M. Hermite, he never evoked a sensuous image, and yet you soon perceived that the most abstract entities were for him like living beings.
From La Valeur de la Science (1904), 32, as translated by George Bruce Halsted (trans.), in The Value of Science (1907), 24. From the French, “Quand on causait avec M. Hermite; jamais il n’évoquait une image sensible, et pourtant vous vous aperceviez bientôt que les entités les plus abstraites étaient, pour lui comme des êtres vivants.” Also as epigraph, “Talk with M. Hermite. He never evokes a concrete image, yet you soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures”, in Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics, (1937), 448.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Being (1276)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Creature (242)  |  Entity (37)  |  Evoke (13)  |  Charles Hermite (10)  |  Image (97)  |  Living (492)  |  Most (1728)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Sensuous (5)  |  Soon (187)  |  Talk (108)

When puzzled, it never hurts to read the primary documents–a rather simple and self-evident principle that has, nonetheless, completely disappeared from large sectors of the American experience.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Completely (137)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Document (7)  |  Evident (92)  |  Experience (494)  |  Hurt (14)  |  Large (398)  |  Nonetheless (2)  |  Primary (82)  |  Principle (530)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Read (308)  |  Sector (7)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Simple (426)

When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.
Niels Bohr, 'Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics', in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949), 236.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Drama (24)  |  Existence (481)  |  Forget (125)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ourselves (247)

When there is publicity about [UFO] sightings that turn out to be explainable, the percentage of unexplained sightings goes up, suggesting that these, too, are caused by something in people’s psychology rather than by something that is actually out there. The UFO evidence forms no coherent residue; it never gets better.
(1984).
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Better (493)  |  Cause (561)  |  Coherent (14)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Form (976)  |  People (1031)  |  Percentage (9)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Publicity (7)  |  Residue (9)  |  Something (718)  |  Turn (454)  |  UFO (4)  |  Unexplained (8)

When they saw they would never be able to set a Catholic head on his shoulders they at least struck off the Protestant one.
Aphorism 94 in Notebook D (1773-1775), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Catholic (18)  |  Execution (25)  |  Head (87)  |  Protestant (2)  |  Saw (160)  |  Set (400)  |  Shoulder (33)

When you’re really shipwrecked, you do really find what you want. When you’re really on a desert island, you never find it a desert. If we were really besieged in this garden we’d find a hundred English birds and English berries that we never knew were here.
In Manalive (1912), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Berry (3)  |  Bird (163)  |  Desert (59)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Garden (64)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Island (49)  |  Know (1538)  |  Observation (593)  |  Research (753)  |  Shipwreck (8)  |  Want (504)

When, however, you see the specification, you will see that the fundamental principles are contained therein. I do not, however, claim even the credit of inventing it, as I do not believe a mere description of an idea that has never been reduced to practice—in the strict sense of that phrase—should be dignified with the name invention.‎
Letter (5 Mar 1877) to Alexander Graham Bell. Quoted in The Bell Telephone (1908), 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Claim (154)  |  Credit (24)  |  Description (89)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Dignify (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mere (86)  |  Name (359)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reduce (100)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Specification (7)  |  Strict (20)  |  Will (2350)

Wherever we seek to find constancy we discover change. Having looked at the old woodlands in Hutcheson Forest, at Isle Royale, and in the wilderness of the boundary waters, in the land of the moose and the wolf, and having uncovered the histories hidden within the trees and within the muds, we find that nature undisturbed is not constant in form, structure, or proportion, but changes at every scale of time and space. The old idea of a static landscape, like a single musical chord sounded forever, must be abandoned, for such a landscape never existed except in our imagination. Nature undisturbed by human influence seems more like a symphony whose harmonies arise from variation and change over many scales of time and space, changing with individual births and deaths, local disruptions and recoveries, larger scale responses to climate from one glacial age to another, and to the slower alterations of soils, and yet larger variations between glacial ages.
Discordant Harmonies (1990), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Age (509)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Arise (162)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Death (406)  |  Discover (571)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Glaciation (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Look (584)  |  Moose (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Response (56)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seek (218)  |  Single (365)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Symphony (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Tree (269)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Variation (93)  |  Water (503)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Wolf (11)

While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice.
'Spectroscopy, Molecular Orbitals, and Chemical Bonding', Nobel Lecture (12 Dec 1966). In Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1963-1970 (1972), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Affirmation (8)  |  Application (257)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Establish (63)  |  Future (467)  |  Marvel (37)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notice (81)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Principle (530)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Safe (61)  |  Safety (58)  |  Seek (218)  |  Store (49)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Wonder (251)

While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established, and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous applications of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance—where the quantitative results are more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist has remarked that the future truths of Physical Science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.
University of Chicago, Annual Register 1894-1895 (1894), 150. Michelson also incorporated these lines in his address, 'Some of the Objects and Methods of Physical Science', at the opening of the Physics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory at the University of Kansas, reprinted in The Electrical Engineer (1 Jan 1896), 21, No. 400, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Application (257)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Desired (5)  |  Established (7)  |  Future (467)  |  Grand (29)  |  Importance (299)  |  Look (584)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Measurement (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notice (81)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomena (8)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Principle (530)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Safe (61)  |  Show (353)  |  Store (49)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Work (1402)

Who never found what good from science grew,
Save the grand truth, that one and one make two.
From poem delivered to the Harvard Chapter, Phi Beta Kappa Society, Cambridge, Mass. (27 Aug 1829). Curiosity: a Poem (1829), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Good (906)  |  Grand (29)  |  One (6)  |  Poem (104)  |  Save (126)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

Who never walks save where he see men's tracks makes no discoveries.
In Kathrina, her Life and Mine in a Poem (1895), 220.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Save (126)  |  See (1094)  |  Track (42)  |  Walk (138)

Who would be a better source of information about the forests than aborigines themselves because they have lived off the forest for most of their lives. The forests have provided the aborigines with food, medicine and shelter among other things and yet, the aborigines have never abused or ravaged the forest the way others have.
Keynote address yesterday at the 21st IUFRO World Congress (International Union of Forestry Research Organisations), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As quoted in Lee Shi-lan 'Utilise Knowledge of Aborigines for the Conservation of Forests', New Straits Times (14 Aug 2000), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Aborigine (2)  |  Abuse (25)  |  Better (493)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Food (213)  |  Forest (161)  |  Information (173)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Provide (79)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Ravage (7)  |  Shelter (23)  |  Source (101)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

Who, of men, can tell
That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell
To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail,
The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale,
The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones,
The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones,
Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet,
If human souls did never kiss and greet?
Endymion (1818), bk. 1, l. 835-842. In John Barnard (ed.), John Keats. The Complete Poems (1973), 129.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fish (130)  |  Flower (112)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Green (65)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Human (1512)  |  Kiss (9)  |  Meadow (21)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Poem (104)  |  River (140)  |  Seed (97)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stone (168)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tone (22)  |  Wood (97)

Whoever ceases to be a student has never been a student.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-Book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Cease (81)  |  Student (317)  |  Whoever (42)

Why can the chemist not take the requisite numbers of atoms and simply put them together? The answer is that the chemist never has atoms at his disposal, and if he had, the direct combination of the appropriate numbers of atoms would lead only to a Brobdingnagian potpourri of different kinds of molecules, having a vast array of different structures. What the chemist has at hand always consists of substances, themselves made up of molecules, containing defined numbers of atoms in ordered arrangements. Consequently, in order to synthesize anyone substance, his task is that of combining, modifying, transforming, and tailoring known substances, until the total effect of his manipulations is the conversion of one or more forms of matter into another.
In 'Art and Science in the Synthesis of Organic Compounds: Retrospect and Prospect', in Maeve O'Connor (ed.), Pointers and Pathways in Research (1963), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Brobdingnag (2)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Combination (150)  |  Consist (223)  |  Conversion (17)  |  Different (595)  |  Direct (228)  |  Effect (414)  |  Form (976)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modification (57)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Task (152)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Total (95)  |  Vast (188)  |  Why (491)

Why does a man want to be a scientist? There are many goals: fame, position, a thirst for understanding. The first two can be attained without intellectual integrity; the third cannot. … The thirst for knowledge, what Thomas Huxley called the ‘Divine dipsomania’, can only be satisfied by complete intellectual integrity. It seems to me the only one of the three goals that continues to reward the pursuer. He presses on, “knowing that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her”. Here is another kind of love, that has so many faces. Love is neither passion, nor pride, nor pity, nor blind adoration, but it can be any or all of these if they are transfigured by deep and unbiased understanding.
In Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (1996), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Adoration (4)  |  Attain (126)  |  Betray (8)  |  Blind (98)  |  Call (781)  |  Complete (209)  |  Continue (179)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dipsomania (2)  |  Divine (112)  |  Face (214)  |  Fame (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Goal (155)  |  Heart (243)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Passion (121)  |  Pity (16)  |  Position (83)  |  Press On (2)  |  Pride (84)  |  Reward (72)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Third (17)  |  Thirst (11)  |  Transfigure (2)  |  Two (936)  |  Unbiased (7)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)

Why, only last term we sent a man who had never been in a laboratory in his life as a senior Science Master to one of our leading public schools. He came [to our agency] wanting to do private coaching in music. He’s doing very well, I believe.
In Decline and Fall (1928), 1962 edn., 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Agency (14)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Leading (17)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Music (133)  |  Private (29)  |  Public School (4)  |  School (227)  |  Senior (7)  |  Term (357)  |  Wanting (2)  |  Why (491)

Winwood Reade … remarks that while a man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.
Character Sherlock Holmes recommends Winwood Reade’s book The Martyrdom of Man to Dr. Watson in The Sign of the Four (1890), 196. Earlier in the novel, Holmes calls Reade’s book “one of the most remarkable ever penned.” Reade is a real person and his book was published in 1872. The actual statement in it reads: “As a single atom man is an enigma: as a whole he is a mathematical problem.”
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Average (89)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Constant (148)  |  Do (1905)  |  Foretell (12)  |  Individual (420)  |  Insoluble (15)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Percentage (9)  |  Precision (72)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Winwood Reade (11)  |  Remain (355)  |  Say (989)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Vary (27)  |  Will (2350)

With a tone control at a single touch
I can make Caruso sound like Hutch,
I never did care for music much—
It’s the high fidelity!
A parody of the hi-fi addict. From lyrics of 'Song of Reproduction', in the Michael Flanders and Donald Swann revue, At the Drop of a Hat (1959). As quoted in Steven D. Lubar, InfoCulture: The Smithsonian Book of Information Age Inventions (1993), 186. “Hutch” was the popularly used name of Leslie Hutchinson (1900-1969), one of the biggest London cabaret entertainers of the 1920s-30s.
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Control (182)  |  High (370)  |  Music (133)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Tone (22)  |  Touch (146)

With thought comprising a non-computational element, computers can never do what we human beings can.
In The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics (1989). As quoted in Stan Franklin, Artificial Minds (1997), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Computer (131)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Thought (995)

Without a commitment to science and rationality in its proper domain, there can be no solution to the problems that engulf us. Still, the Yahoos never rest.
Ever Since Darwin (1980),146.
Science quotes on:  |  Commitment (28)  |  Domain (72)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proper (150)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Rest (287)  |  Solution (282)  |  Still (614)

Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.
Fri 13 Feb 1829. Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, ed. J. K. Moorhead and trans. J. Oxenford (1971), 293.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Character (259)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Error (339)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observe (179)  |  Point (584)  |  Pure (299)  |  Sense (785)  |  Strong (182)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Weak (73)

Worry affects circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system, and profoundly affects the heart. I have never known a man who died from overwork, but many who died from doubt.
Leonard Louis Levinson, Bartlett's Unfamiliar Quotations (1972). Cited in Bill Swainson, Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), 624.
Science quotes on:  |  Circulation (27)  |  Death (406)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Gland (14)  |  Heart (243)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Overwork (2)  |  System (545)  |  Whole (756)  |  Worry (34)

You all have learned reliance
On the sacred teachings of Science,
So I hope, through life, you will never decline
In spite of philistine Defiance
To do what all good scientists do.
Experiment.
Make it your motto day and night.
Experiment.
And it will lead you to the light.
From 'Experiment', a song in the musical Nymph Errant (1933).
Science quotes on:  |  Decline (28)  |  Defiance (7)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Good (906)  |  Hope (321)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Motto (29)  |  Reliance (11)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spite (55)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

You are surprised at my working simultaneously in literature and in mathematics. Many people who have never had occasion to learn what mathematics is confuse it with arithmetic and consider it a dry and arid science. In actual fact it is the science which demands the utmost imagination. One of the foremost mathematicians of our century says very justly that it is impossible to be a mathematician without also being a poet in spirit. It goes without saying that to understand the truth of this statement one must repudiate the old prejudice by which poets are supposed to fabricate what does not exist, and that imagination is the same as “making things up”. It seems to me that the poet must see what others do not see, and see more deeply than other people. And the mathematician must do the same.
In letter (1890), quoted in S. Kovalevskaya and ‎Beatrice Stillman (trans. and ed.), Sofia Kovalevskaya: A Russian Childhood (2013), 35. Translated the Russian edition of Vospominaniya detstva (1974).
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Arid (6)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Consider (428)  |  Demand (131)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dry (65)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fabricate (6)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Learn (672)  |  Literature (116)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Poet (97)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  See (1094)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Statement (148)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)

You can't go by mathematics: the dollar you borrow is never as big as the dollar you pay back.
Anonymous
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Borrow (31)  |  Joke (90)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Money (178)

You have all heard of that celebrated painter who would never allow any one to mix his colors for him. He always insisted on doing that himself, and at last one of his students, whose curiosity had been aroused, said: “Professor, what do you mix your colors with?” “With brains, sir,” said the professor. Now, that is what we have to do with our observations.
From Address (22 May 1914) to the graduating class of the Friends’ School, Washington, D.C. Printed in 'Discovery and Invention', The National Geographic Magazine (1914), 25, 650.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Color (155)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Himself (461)  |  Last (425)  |  Mix (24)  |  Observation (593)  |  Painter (30)  |  Professor (133)  |  Student (317)

You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.
Quoted in G. Simmons, Calculus Gems (1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Possible (560)  |  Publication (102)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

You know, all is development. The principle is perpetually going on. First, there was nothing, then there was something; then—I forget the next—I think there were shells, then fishes; then we came—let me see—did we come next? Never mind that; we came at last. And at the next change there will be something very superior to us—something with wings. Ah! That's it: we were fishes, and I believe we shall be crows.
Tancred: or, The New Crusade (1847), 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Development (441)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Forget (125)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Next (238)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Principle (530)  |  See (1094)  |  Shell (69)  |  Something (718)  |  Superior (88)  |  Think (1122)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)

You must never believe all these things which the scientists say because they always want more than they can get—they are never satisfied.
[Responding to a complaint of inadequate support for research.]
Quoted in Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, Nuclear Scientist Defect to the United States (1965). In Daniel S. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (1999), 156, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Funding (20)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Research (753)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Support (151)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)

You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to nature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and nobody knows; not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any other of the great men whom good boys are taught to respect. They are very wise men; and you must listen respectfully to all they say: but even if they should say, which I am sure they never would, “That cannot exist. That is contrary to nature,” you must wait a little, and see; for perhaps even they may be wrong.
The Water-babies (1886), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Boy (100)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Sir William Robert Grove (5)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Listen (81)  |  Little (717)  |  Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (9)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sir Richard Owen (17)  |  Professor (133)  |  Proof (304)  |  Respect (212)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wrong (246)

You never can tell what you have said or done till you have seen it reflected in other people’s minds.
In interview with Janet Mable, 'Education by Presence', The Christian Science Monitor (24 Dec 1925), reprinted in Interviews with Robert Frost (1966), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Education (423)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Tell (344)

You will never convince some palaeontologists that an impact killed the dinosaurs unless you find a dinosaur skeleton with a crushed skull and a ring of iridium round the hole.
Quoted in 'Extinction Wars' by Stell Weisburd, Science News (1 Feb 1986), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Convince (43)  |  Crush (19)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Find (1014)  |  Impact (45)  |  Iridium (3)  |  Kill (100)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Skull (5)  |  Will (2350)

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe “Daylight Saving Time.”
From newspaper column '25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years' (Oct 1998), collected in Dave Barry Turns Fifty (2010), 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Compelling (11)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Daylight Saving Time (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  Observe (179)  |  Reason (766)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  Must (1525)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Faster (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Progress (492)  |  Still (614)  |  Will (2350)

You’re aware the boy failed my grade school math class, I take it? And not that many years later he’s teaching college. Now I ask you: Is that the sorriest indictment of the American educational system you ever heard? [pauses to light cigarette.] No aptitude at all for long division, but never mind. It’s him they ask to split the atom. How he talked his way into the Nobel prize is beyond me. But then, I suppose it’s like the man says, it’s not what you know...
Karl Arbeiter (former teacher of Albert Einstein)
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atom (381)  |  Aware (36)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Boy (100)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Class (168)  |  College (71)  |  Division (67)  |  Educational (7)  |  Fail (191)  |  Grade (12)  |  Hear (144)  |  Indictment (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Late (119)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Pause (6)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Split (15)  |  Suppose (158)  |  System (545)  |  Talk (108)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate—and quickly.
In 'From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long', Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long (1973), 259.
Science quotes on:  |  Enemy (86)  |  Eye (440)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hate (68)  |  Keep (104)  |  Kill (100)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Offer (142)  |  Quickly (21)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Villain (5)  |  Way (1214)

Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd [should] be forestalled ... I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters.
Letter to Charles Lyell, 18 June 1858. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1858-1859, Supplement 1821-1857 (1991), Vol. 7, 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Better (493)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Sir Charles Lyell (42)  |  More (2558)  |  Publication (102)  |  Saw (160)  |  Short (200)  |  Stand (284)  |  Striking (48)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Alfred Russel Wallace (41)  |  Word (650)


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.