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: “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Personally

Personally Quotes (7 quotes)

A week or so after I learned that I was to receive the Miller Award, our president, Marty Morton, phoned and asked me if I would utter a few words of scientific wisdom as a part of the ceremony. Unfortunately for me, and perhaps for you, I agreed to do so. In retrospect I fear that my response was a serious error, because I do not feel wise. I do not know whether to attribute my response to foolhardiness, to conceit, to an inordinate susceptibility to flattery, to stupidity, or to some combination of these unfortunate attributes all of which I have been told are recognizable in my personality. Personally, I tend to favor stupidity, because that is a condition over which I have little control.
Bartholomew, April 1993, unpublished remarks when receiving the Miller Award from the Cooper Ornithological Society.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Award (13)  |  Ceremony (6)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conceit (15)  |  Condition (362)  |  Control (182)  |  Do (1905)  |  Error (339)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feel (371)  |  Flattery (7)  |  Inordinate (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Little (717)  |  Miller (2)  |  Part (235)  |  Personality (66)  |  Phone (2)  |  President (36)  |  Receive (117)  |  Response (56)  |  Retrospect (3)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Serious (98)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Susceptibility (3)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tend (124)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Utter (8)  |  Week (73)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)  |  Word (650)

As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Being (1276)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Community (111)  |  Extend (129)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Member (42)  |  Nation (208)  |  Point (584)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Same (166)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tribe (26)  |  United (15)  |  Unknown (195)

Consider the plight of a scientist of my age. I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1940. In the 41 years since then the amount of biological information has increased 16 fold; during these 4 decades my capacity to absorb new information has declined at an accelerating rate and now is at least 50% less than when I was a graduate student. If one defines ignorance as the ratio of what is available to be known to what is known, there seems no alternative to the conclusion that my ignorance is at least 25 times as extensive as it was when I got my bachelor’s degree. Although I am sure that my unfortunate condition comes as no surprise to my students and younger colleagues, I personally find it somewhat depressing. My depression is tempered, however, by the fact that all biologists, young or old, developing or senescing, face the same melancholy situation because of an interlocking set of circumstances.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 228.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Accelerate (11)  |  Age (509)  |  Alternative (32)  |  Amount (153)  |  Available (80)  |  Bachelor (3)  |  Berkeley (3)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Decade (66)  |  Decline (28)  |  Define (53)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depressing (3)  |  Depression (26)  |  Develop (278)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fold (9)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Increase (225)  |  Information (173)  |  Interlocking (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Least (75)  |  Less (105)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Plight (5)  |  Rate (31)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seem (150)  |  Set (400)  |  Situation (117)  |  Student (317)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Temper (12)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  University (130)  |  University Of California (2)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)

My mother, my dad and I left Cuba when I was two [January, 1959]. Castro had taken control by then, and life for many ordinary people had become very difficult. My dad had worked [as a personal bodyguard for the wife of Cuban president Batista], so he was a marked man. We moved to Miami, which is about as close to Cuba as you can get without being there. It’s a Cuba-centric society. I think a lot of Cubans moved to the US thinking everything would be perfect. Personally, I have to say that those early years were not particularly happy. A lot of people didn’t want us around, and I can remember seeing signs that said: “No children. No pets. No Cubans.” Things were not made easier by the fact that Dad had begun working for the US government. At the time he couldn’t really tell us what he was doing, because it was some sort of top-secret operation. He just said he wanted to fight against what was happening back at home. [Estefan’s father was one of the many Cuban exiles taking part in the ill-fated, anti-Castro Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow dictator Fidel Castro.] One night, Dad disappeared. I think he was so worried about telling my mother he was going that he just left her a note. There were rumors something was happening back home, but we didn’t really know where Dad had gone. It was a scary time for many Cubans. A lot of men were involved—lots of families were left without sons and fathers. By the time we found out what my dad had been doing, the attempted coup had taken place, on April 17, 1961. Initially he’d been training in Central America, but after the coup attempt he was captured and spent the next two years as a political prisoner in Cuba. That was probably the worst time for my mother and me. Not knowing what was going to happen to Dad. I was only a kid, but I had worked out where my dad was. My mother was trying to keep it a secret, so she used to tell me Dad was on a farm. Of course, I thought that she didn’t know what had really happened to him, so I used to keep up the pretense that Dad really was working on a farm. We used to do this whole pretending thing every day, trying to protect each other. Those two years had a terrible effect on my mother. She was very nervous, just going from church to church. Always carrying her rosary beads, praying her little heart out. She had her religion, and I had my music. Music was in our family. My mother was a singer, and on my father’s side there was a violinist and a pianist. My grandmother was a poet.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  America (143)  |  April (9)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Back (395)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bay Of Pigs (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capture (11)  |  Carry (130)  |  Fidel Castro (3)  |  Central (81)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Church (64)  |  Close (77)  |  Control (182)  |  Coup (2)  |  Course (413)  |  Cuba (2)  |  Dad (4)  |  Dictator (3)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Early (196)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exile (6)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Family (101)  |  Farm (28)  |  Father (113)  |  Fight (49)  |  Find (1014)  |  Government (116)  |  Grandmother (4)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Happening (59)  |  Happy (108)  |  Heart (243)  |  Home (184)  |  Invasion (9)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Keep (104)  |  Kid (18)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Lot (151)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mark (47)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mother (116)  |  Move (223)  |  Music (133)  |  Nervous (7)  |  Next (238)  |  Night (133)  |  Note (39)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Operation (221)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overthrow (5)  |  Part (235)  |  Particularly (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pet (10)  |  Pianist (2)  |  Place (192)  |  Poet (97)  |  Political (124)  |  Pray (19)  |  President (36)  |  Pretence (7)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Probably (50)  |  Protect (65)  |  Really (77)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remember (189)  |  Rumour (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Scary (3)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Side (236)  |  Sign (63)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Son (25)  |  Sort (50)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  Training (92)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wife (41)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worry (34)  |  Worst (57)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Possession (68)  |  Stand (284)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Without (13)

Personally, I feel sorry for those who seem to measure their patriotism by how often and how viciously they can criticise our government.
As recorded in United States Congressional Serial Set (2000), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Criticise (2)  |  End (603)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feel Sorry (4)  |  Government (116)  |  Measure (241)  |  Often (109)  |  Patriotism (9)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Vicious (5)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Present (630)  |  Pretty (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Stark (3)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Work (1402)


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.