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: “Environmental extremists ... wouldn�t let you build a house unless it looked like a bird�s nest.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index O > Category: Orderly

Orderly Quotes (38 quotes)

[There was] in some of the intellectual leaders a great aspiration to demonstrate that the universe ran like a piece of clock-work, but this was was itself initially a religious aspiration. It was felt that there would be something defective in Creation itself—something not quite worthy of God—unless the whole system of the universe could be shown to be interlocking, so that it carried the pattern of reasonableness and orderliness. Kepler, inaugurating the scientist’s quest for a mechanistic universe in the seventeenth century, is significant here—his mysticism, his music of the spheres, his rational deity demand a system which has the beauty of a piece of mathematics.
In The Origins of Modern Science (1950), 105.
Science quotes on:  |  17th Century (20)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Century (319)  |  Clock (51)  |  Clockwork (7)  |  Creation (350)  |  Defective (4)  |  Deity (22)  |  Demand (131)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Leader (51)  |  Mathematical Beauty (19)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Music (133)  |  Music Of The Spheres (3)  |  Mysticism (14)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Quest (39)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Reasonableness (6)  |  Religious (134)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Significant (78)  |  Something (718)  |  Sphere (118)  |  System (545)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

A neat and orderly laboratory is unlikely. It is, after all, so much a place of false starts and multiple attempts.
[Unverified. Please contact Webmaster if you can identify the primary source.]
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  False (105)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Neatness (6)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Place (192)  |  Start (237)  |  Unlikely (15)

Art is an expression of the world order and is, therefore, orderly, organic, subject to mathematical law, and susceptible to mathematical analysis.
In 'The Theosophic View of the Art of Architecture', The Beautiful Necessity, Seven Essays on Theosophy and Architecture (2nd ed., 1922), Preface to the Second Edition, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Art (680)  |  Expression (181)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Subject (543)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  World (1850)

Beneath all the wealth of detail in a geological map lies an elegant, orderly simplicity.
As quoted in G.D. Garland, 'John Tuzo Wilson', Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (Nov 1995), 552.
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Detail (150)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Geology (240)  |  Lie (370)  |  Map (50)  |  Order (638)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Wealth (100)

Darwin abolished special creations, contributed the Origin of Species and hitched all life together in one unbroken procession of Siamese Twins, the whole evolved by natural and orderly processes from one microscopic parent germ.
'The Secret History of Eddypus', in Mark Twain and David Ketterer (ed.), Tales of Wonder (2003), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Germ (54)  |  Hitch (3)  |  Life (1870)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Natural (810)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Parent (80)  |  Process (439)  |  Procession (5)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Together (392)  |  Twin (16)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  Whole (756)

Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one’s mind right. All of its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence.
In Ibn Khaldûn, Franz Rosenthal (trans.) and N.J. Dawood (ed.), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (1967, 1969), Vol. 1, 378.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arranged (4)  |  Clear (111)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enter (145)  |  Error (339)  |  Fall (243)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Person (366)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Right (473)  |  Set (400)  |  Way (1214)

He who would know what geometry is, must venture boldly into its depths and learn to think and feel as a geometer. I believe that it is impossible to do this, and to study geometry as it admits of being studied and am conscious it can be taught, without finding the reason invigorated, the invention quickened, the sentiment of the orderly and beautiful awakened and enhanced, and reverence for truth, the foundation of all integrity of character, converted into a fixed principle of the mental and moral constitution, according to the old and expressive adage “abeunt studia in mores”.
In 'A Probationary Lecture on Geometry, in Collected Mathematical Papers (1908), Vol. 2, 9. [The Latin phrase, “abeunt studia in mores” translates as “studies pass on into character”. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Abeunt Studia In Mores (2)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Adage (4)  |  Admit (49)  |  Awaken (17)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Boldly (5)  |  Character (259)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Convert (22)  |  Depth (97)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Expressive (6)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fix (34)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Invention (400)  |  Invigorate (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mental (179)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Old (499)  |  Principle (530)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Study (701)  |  Teach (299)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Venture (19)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  Omit (12)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  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 shall conclude, for the time being, by saying that until Philosophers make observations (especially of mountains) that are longer, more attentive, orderly, and interconnected, and while they fail to recognize the two great agents, fire and water, in their distinct affects, they will not be able to understand the causes of the great natural variety in the disposition, structure, and other matter that can be observed in the terrestrial globe in a manner that truly corresponds to the facts and to the phenomena of Nature.
'Aleune Osservazioni Orittologiche fatte nei Monti del Vicentino', Giomale d’Italia, 1769, 5, 411, trans. Ezio Vaccari.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fire (203)  |  Geology (240)  |  Great (1610)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Structure (365)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Variety (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

I trust ... I have succeeded in convincing you that modern chemistry is not, as it has so long appeared, an ever-growing accumulation of isolated facts, as impossible for a single intellect to co-ordinate as for a single memory to grasp.
The intricate formulae that hang upon these walls, and the boundless variety of phenomena they illustrate, are beginning to be for us as a labyrinth once impassable, but to which we have at length discovered the clue. A sense of mastery and power succeeds in our minds to the sort of weary despair with which we at first contemplated their formidable array. For now, by the aid of a few general principles, we find ourselves able to unravel the complexities of these formulae, to marshal the compounds which they represent in orderly series; nay, even to multiply their numbers at our will, and in a great measure to forecast their nature ere we have called them into existence. It is the great movement of modern chemistry that we have thus, for an hour, seen passing before us. It is a movement as of light spreading itself over a waste of obscurity, as of law diffusing order throughout a wilderness of confusion, and there is surely in its contemplation something of the pleasure which attends the spectacle of a beautiful daybreak, something of the grandeur belonging to the conception of a world created out of chaos.
Concluding remark for paper presented at the Friday Discourse of the the Royal Institution (7 Apr 1865). 'On the Combining Power of Atoms', Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1865), 4, No. 42, 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Aid (101)  |  Attend (67)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Call (781)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clue (20)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conception (160)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Despair (40)  |  Discover (571)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Forecast (15)  |  Formula (102)  |  General (521)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growing (99)  |  Hang (46)  |  Hour (192)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Labyrinth (12)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Measure (241)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Order (638)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Passing (76)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Represent (157)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Surely (101)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Trust (72)  |  Unravel (16)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wall (71)  |  Waste (109)  |  Weary (11)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

I try in my prints to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, and not in a formless chaos, as it sometimes appears.
(1965). As quoted in Michele Emmer and ‎Doris Schattschneider, M.C. Escher’s Legacy: A Centennial Celebration (2007), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Formless (4)  |  Live (650)  |  Print (20)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Testify (7)  |  Try (296)  |  World (1850)

In mathematics ... we find two tendencies present. On the one hand, the tendency towards abstraction seeks to crystallise the logical relations inherent in the maze of materials ... being studied, and to correlate the material in a systematic and orderly
Geometry and the imagination (New York, 1952).
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Being (1276)  |  Correlate (7)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hand (149)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Logical (57)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maze (11)  |  Present (630)  |  Relation (166)  |  Seek (218)  |  Study (701)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Two (936)

In this physical world there is no real chaos; all is in fact orderly; all is ordered by the physical principles. Chaos is but unperceived order- it is a word indicating the limitations of the human mind and the paucity of observational facts. The words “chaos,” “accidental,” “chance,” “unpredictable," are conveniences behind which we hide our ignorance.
From Of Stars and Men: The Human Response to an Expanding Universe (1958 Rev. Ed. 1964), Foreword.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Accidental (31)  |  Behind (139)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hide (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Order (638)  |  Paucity (3)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Principle (530)  |  Real (159)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 24. 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, 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Argument (145)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Form (976)  |  Greater (288)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Render (96)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

It is an astonishing feat of deciphering that we should have been able to infer an orderly scheme of natural knowledge from such indirect communication.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Communication (101)  |  Feat (11)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Natural (810)  |  Scheme (62)

It seems to me that the view toward which we are tending is that the specificity in gene action is always a chemical specificity, probably the production of enzymes which guide metabolic processes along particular channels. A given array of genes thus determines the production of a particular kind of protoplasm with particular properties—such, for example, as that of responding to surface forces by the formation of a special sort of semipermeable membrane, and that of responding to trivial asymmetries in the play of external stimuli by polarization, with consequent orderly quantitative gradients in all physiologic processes. Different genes may now be called into play at different points in this simple pattern, either through the local formation of their specific substrates for action, or by activation of a mutational nature. In either case the pattern becomes more complex and qualitatively differentiated. Successive interactions of differentiated regions and the calling into play of additional genes may lead to any degree of complexity of pattern in the organism as a largely self-contained system. The array of genes, assembled in the course of evolution, must of course be one which determines a highly self­regulatory system of reactions. On this view the genes are highly specific chemically, and thus called into play only under very specific conditions; but their morphological effects, if any, rest on quantitative influences of immediate or remote products on growth gradients, which are resultants of all that has gone on before in the organism.
In 'Genetics of Abnormal Growth in the Guinea Pig', Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology (1934), 2, 142.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Activation (6)  |  Asymmetry (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Channel (23)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Course (413)  |  Degree (277)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Force (497)  |  Formation (100)  |  Gene (105)  |  Gradient (2)  |  Growth (200)  |  Guide (107)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lead (391)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  More (2558)  |  Morphological (3)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organism (231)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Point (584)  |  Polarization (4)  |  Product (166)  |  Production (190)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Special (188)  |  Specific (98)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Successive (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Trivial (59)  |  View (496)

It was his [Leibnitz’s] love of method and order, and the conviction that such order and harmony existed in the real world, and that our success in understanding it depended upon the degree and order which we could attain in our own thoughts, that originally was probably nothing more than a habit which by degrees grew into a formal rule. This habit was acquired by early occupation with legal and mathematical questions. We have seen how the theory of combinations and arrangements of elements had a special interest for him. We also saw how mathematical calculations served him as a type and model of clear and orderly reasoning, and how he tried to introduce method and system into logical discussions, by reducing to a small number of terms the multitude of compound notions he had to deal with. This tendency increased in strength, and even in those early years he elaborated the idea of a general arithmetic, with a universal language of symbols, or a characteristic which would be applicable to all reasoning processes, and reduce philosophical investigations to that simplicity and certainty which the use of algebraic symbols had introduced into mathematics.
A mental attitude such as this is always highly favorable for mathematical as well as for philosophical investigations. Wherever progress depends upon precision and clearness of thought, and wherever such can be gained by reducing a variety of investigations to a general method, by bringing a multitude of notions under a common term or symbol, it proves inestimable. It necessarily imports the special qualities of number—viz., their continuity, infinity and infinite divisibility—like mathematical quantities—and destroys the notion that irreconcilable contrasts exist in nature, or gaps which cannot be bridged over. Thus, in his letter to Arnaud, Leibnitz expresses it as his opinion that geometry, or the philosophy of space, forms a step to the philosophy of motion—i.e., of corporeal things—and the philosophy of motion a step to the philosophy of mind.
In Leibnitz (1884), 44-45. [The first sentence is reworded to better introduce the quotation. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Algebraic (5)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bring (95)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Combination (150)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Corporeal (5)  |  Deal (192)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Early (196)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Express (192)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Form (976)  |  Formal (37)  |  Gain (146)  |  Gap (36)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Grow (247)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Highly (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Import (5)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inestimable (4)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interest (416)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Language (308)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Legal (9)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Letter (117)  |  Logical (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Original (61)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Precision (72)  |  Probable (24)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prove (261)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Quotation (19)  |  Real World (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Serve (64)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Interest (2)  |  Step (234)  |  Strength (139)  |  Success (327)  |  Symbol (100)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Type (171)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wherever (51)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Mathematics is perfectly free in its development and is subject only to the obvious consideration, that its concepts must be free from contradictions in themselves, as well as definitely and orderly related by means of definitions to the previously existing and established concepts.
In Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Manigfaltigkeitslehre (1883), Sect. 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Development (441)  |  Established (7)  |  Existing (10)  |  Free (239)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Previous (17)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Possible (560)  |  Simple (426)  |  Underlying (33)

Now this supreme wisdom, united to goodness that is no less infinite, cannot but have chosen the best. For as a lesser evil is a kind of good, even so a lesser good is a kind of evil if it stands in the way of a greater good; and the would be something to correct in the actions of God if it were possible to the better. As in mathematics, when there is no maximum nor minimum, in short nothing distinguished, everything is done equally, or when that is not nothing at all is done: so it may be said likewise in respect of perfect wisdom, which is no less orderly than mathematics, that if there were not the best (optimum) among all possible worlds, God would not have produced any.
Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God and Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil (1710), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Equally (129)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evil (122)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Greater (288)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Minimum (13)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Possible (560)  |  Produced (187)  |  Respect (212)  |  Short (200)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

Palaeontology is the Aladdin’s lamp of the most deserted and lifeless regions of the earth; it touches the rocks and there spring forth in orderly succession the monarchs of the past and the ancient river streams and savannahs wherein they flourished. The rocks usually hide their story in the most difficult and inaccessible places.
In On the Trail of Ancient Man (1926), x.
Science quotes on:  |  Aladdin (2)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Desert (59)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Hide (70)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Most (1728)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Past (355)  |  River (140)  |  Rock (176)  |  Spring (140)  |  Story (122)  |  Stream (83)  |  Succession (80)  |  Usually (176)

Passing just lately over this lake, … and examining this water next day, I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise, and orderly arranged, after the manner of the copper or tin worms, which distillers use to cool their liquors as they distil over. The whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one's head. … all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well. [The earliest recorded observation of the common green alga Spyrogyra.]
Letter to the Royal Society, London (7 Sep 1674). In John Carey, Eyewitness to Science (1997), 28-29
Science quotes on:  |  Alga (2)  |  Circumference (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Consist (223)  |  Copper (25)  |  Globule (5)  |  Green (65)  |  Hair (25)  |  Lake (36)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Next (238)  |  Observation (593)  |  Particle (200)  |  Passing (76)  |  Record (161)  |  Serpent (5)  |  Small (489)  |  Tin (18)  |  Together (392)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wise (143)  |  Worm (47)  |  Wound (26)

Pure reasoning as a means of arriving at truth is like the spider who spins a web out of himself. The web is orderly and elaborate, but it is only a trap.
In Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Himself (461)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Order (638)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Spider (14)  |  Spin (26)  |  Trap (7)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Web (17)

Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to … Anyone will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena, and when science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules.
In 'The Hidden Self', Scribner’s Magazine (1890), Vol. 7, 361.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Dust (68)  |  Easy (213)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Float (31)  |  Formula (102)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Irregular (7)  |  Look (584)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Order (638)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Prove (261)  |  Renew (20)  |  Renovate (3)  |  Rule (307)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Will (2350)

Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dustcloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to.
The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1977, 1983), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Easy (213)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Float (31)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Order (638)  |  Prove (261)  |  Seldom (68)

Rumour has it that the gardens of natural history museums are used for surreptitious burial of those intermediate forms between species which might disturb the orderly classifications of the taxonomist.
Darwin's Finches (1947), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Burial (8)  |  Classification (102)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Form (976)  |  Garden (64)  |  History (716)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Museum (40)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Rumour (2)  |  Species (435)  |  Surreptitious (2)

Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one. The knowledge of reasons and their conclusions constitutes abstract, that of causes and their effects, and of the laws of nature, natural science.
A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830).
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Attainable (3)  |  Become (821)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Digest (10)  |  Effect (414)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Methodically (2)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reason (766)

Scientific discovery, or the formulation of scientific theory, starts in with the unvarnished and unembroidered evidence of the senses. It starts with simple observation—simple, unbiased, unprejudiced, naive, or innocent observation—and out of this sensory evidence, embodied in the form of simple propositions or declarations of fact, generalizations will grow up and take shape, almost as if some process of crystallization or condensation were taking place. Out of a disorderly array of facts, an orderly theory, an orderly general statement, will somehow emerge.
In 'Is the Scientific Paper Fraudulent?', The Saturday Review (1 Aug 1964), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Array (5)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Crystallization (2)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Embody (18)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Formulation (37)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Grow (247)  |  Innocent (13)  |  Naive (13)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Process (439)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Shape (77)  |  Simple (426)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Start (237)  |  Statement (148)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unbiased (7)  |  Unprejudiced (3)  |  Unvarnished (2)  |  Will (2350)

The Archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh, under divers such modifications, upon this planet, long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such organic phaenomena may have been committed we as yet are ignorant. But if, without derogation of the Divine power, we may conceive the existence of such ministers, and personify them by the term 'Nature,' we learn from the past history of our globe that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light, amidst the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the Vertebrate idea under its old Ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the Human form.
On the Nature of Limbs (1849), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Animal (651)  |  Archetype (5)  |  Array (5)  |  Cause (561)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conception (160)  |  Divine (112)  |  Embodiment (9)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Example (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Garb (6)  |  Globe (51)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Glory (66)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Minister (10)  |  Modification (57)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Organic (161)  |  Past (355)  |  Personification (4)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Progression (23)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Slow (108)  |  Species (435)  |  Stately (12)  |  Step (234)  |  Succession (80)  |  Term (357)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Vestment (2)  |  World (1850)  |  Wreck (10)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notion (120)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  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 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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  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 main species of beauty are orderly arrangement, proportion, and definiteness; and these are especially manifested by the mathematical sciences.
Aristotle
In Metaphysics, 13-1078a-b, as translated by Hugh Tredennick (1933). Also seen translated as, “The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.”
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Definiteness (3)  |  Main (29)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Order (638)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Species (435)

The planned and orderly development and conservation of our natural resources is the first duty of the United States. It is the only form of insurance that will certainly protect us against disasters that lack of foresight has repeatedly brought down on nations since passed away.
In 'The Conservation of Natural Resources', The Outlook (12 Oct 1907), 87, 294.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Development (441)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Down (455)  |  Duty (71)  |  First (1302)  |  Foresight (8)  |  Form (976)  |  Insurance (12)  |  Lack (127)  |  Nation (208)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Resource (23)  |  Pass (241)  |  Plan (122)  |  Protect (65)  |  State (505)  |  United States (31)  |  Will (2350)

The scientist who recognizes God knows only the God of Newton. To him the God imagined by Laplace and Comte is wholly inadequate. He feels that God is in nature, that the orderly ways in which nature works are themselves the manifestations of God's will and purpose. Its laws are his orderly way of working.
The Human Meaning of Science (1940), 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Auguste Comte (24)  |  Feel (371)  |  God (776)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Know (1538)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Law (913)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The solution of fallacies, which give rise to absurdities, should be to him who is not a first beginner in mathematics an excellent means of testing for a proper intelligible insight into mathematical truth, of sharpening the wit, and of confining the judgment and reason within strictly orderly limits
In 'Vorwort', Mathematische Sophismen (1864), 3. As translated and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath's Quotation-Book (1914), 89. From the original German, “Das Aufsuchen der Trugschlüsse, durch welche Ungereimtheiten entstellen, dürfte nun für den nicht ganz ersten Anfänger in der Mathematik ein vorzügliches Mittel sein, eine richtige begriffliche Einsicht in die mathematischen Wahrheiten zu erproben, den Verstand zu schärfen und das Urtheilen und Schliessen in streng geregelte Grenzen zu dämmen.”
Science quotes on:  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Beginner (11)  |  Confine (26)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  First (1302)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Solution (282)  |  Strict (20)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Test (221)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wit (61)

There is beauty in space, and it is orderly. There is no weather, and there is regularity. It is predictable…. Everything in space obeys the laws of physics. If you know these laws, and obey them, space will treat you kindly. And don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go—and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.
Quoted in 'Reach For The Stars', Time (17 Feb 1958), 71, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Everything (489)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Obey (46)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Space (523)  |  Tell (344)  |  Telling (24)  |  Want (504)  |  Weather (49)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Will (2350)

Tyndall declared that he saw in Matter the promise and potency of all forms of life, and with his Irish graphic lucidity made a picture of a world of magnetic atoms, each atom with a positive and a negative pole, arranging itself by attraction and repulsion in orderly crystalline structure. Such a picture is dangerously fascinating to thinkers oppressed by the bloody disorders of the living world. Craving for purer subjects of thought, they find in the contemplation of crystals and magnets a happiness more dramatic and less childish than the happiness found by mathematicians in abstract numbers, because they see in the crystals beauty and movement without the corrupting appetites of fleshly vitality.
In Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), lxi-lxii.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Appetite (20)  |  Atom (381)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Childish (20)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Declared (24)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Lucidity (7)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Negative (66)  |  Number (710)  |  Picture (148)  |  Pole (49)  |  Positive (98)  |  Potency (10)  |  Promise (72)  |  Repulsion (7)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thought (995)  |  John Tyndall (53)  |  Vitality (24)  |  World (1850)

We cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt, and that this is the first knowledge we acquire when we philosophize in order. … The knowledge, I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophizes orderly.
From the original Latin: “Non posse à nobis dubitari, quin existamus dum dubitamus; atque quod ordine philosophando cognoscimus. … Ac proinde hæc cognitio, ego cognito, ergo sum, est omnium | prima & certissima, quæ cuilibet ordine philosophanti occurant,” in Principia Philosophiæ (1644), Pars Prima, as collected in Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Œuvres de Descartes (1905), Vol. 8, Proposition VII, 6-7. English version as given in John Veitch (trans.), The Method, Meditations, and Selections from the Principles of Descartes (1880), 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Certain (557)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Existence (481)  |  First (1302)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Think (1122)


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.