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: “Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Power

Power Quotes (771 quotes)

...each metal has a certain power, which is different from metal to metal, of setting the electric fluid in motion...
Le Opere, Vol. 1, 149. In Giuliano Pancaldi, Volta: Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment (2005), 190.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Current (122)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Metal (88)  |  Motion (320)  |  Setting (44)  |  Voltage (3)

“Unless,” said I [Socrates], “either philosophers become kings in our states or those whom we now call our kings and rulers take to the pursuit of' philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction of these two things, political power and philosophic intelligence, while the motley horde of the natures who at present pursue either apart from the other are compulsorily excluded, there can be no cessation of troubles, dear Glaucon, for our states, nor, I fancy for the human race either. Nor, until this happens, will this constitution which we have been expounding in theory ever be put into practice within the limits of possibility and see the light of the sun.”
Plato
From The Republic 5 473 c-e, in Paul Shorey (trans.), Plato in Twelve Volumes (1930, 1969), Vol. 5, 509.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Cessation (13)  |  Compulsion (19)  |  Conjunction (12)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Horde (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  King (39)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Race (278)  |  Ruler (21)  |  See (1094)  |   Socrates, (17)  |  State (505)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

[Davy's] March of Glory, which he has run for the last six weeks—within which time by the aid and application of his own great discovery, of the identity of electricity and chemical attractions, he has placed all the elements and all their inanimate combinations in the power of man; having decomposed both the Alkalies, and three of the Earths, discovered as the base of the Alkalies a new metal... Davy supposes there is only one power in the world of the senses; which in particles acts as chemical attractions, in specific masses as electricity, & on matter in general, as planetary Gravitation... when this has been proved, it will then only remain to resolve this into some Law of vital Intellect—and all human knowledge will be Science and Metaphysics the only Science.
In November 1807 Davy gave his famous Second Bakerian Lecture at the Royal Society, in which he used Voltaic batteries to “decompose, isolate and name” several new chemical elements, notably sodium and potassium.
Letter to Dorothy Wordsworth, 24 November 1807. In Earl Leslie Griggs (ed.), The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1956), Vol. 3, 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Aid (101)  |  Application (257)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Base (120)  |  Both (496)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Combination (150)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  General (521)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identity (19)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Man (2252)  |  March (48)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metal (88)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Particle (200)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Potassium (12)  |  Remain (355)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Run (158)  |  Sense (785)  |  Society (350)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Specific (98)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vital (89)  |  Voltaic (9)  |  Week (73)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

[De Morgan relates that some person had made up 800 anagrams on his name, of which he had seen about 650. Commenting on these he says:]
Two of these I have joined in the title-page:
[Ut agendo surgamus arguendo gustamus.]
A few of the others are personal remarks.
Great gun! do us a sum!
is a sneer at my pursuit; but,
Go! great sum! [integral of a to the power u to the power n with respect to u] is more dignified. …
Adsum, nugator, suge!
is addressed to a student who continues talking after the lecture has commenced: …
Graduatus sum! nego
applies to one who declined to subscribe for an M.A. degree.
In Budget of Paradoxes (1872), 82. [The Latin phrases translate as, respectively, “Such action will start arguing with taste”, “Here babbler suck!” and “I graduate! I reject.” —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Address (13)  |  Anagram (9)  |  Apply (170)  |  Argue (25)  |  Babble (2)  |  Commence (5)  |  Comment (12)  |  Continue (179)  |  Decline (28)  |  Degree (277)  |  Augustus De Morgan (45)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Great (1610)  |  Gun (10)  |  Integral (26)  |  Join (32)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Other (2233)  |  Page (35)  |  Person (366)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Relate (26)  |  Remark (28)  |  Respect (212)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sneer (9)  |  Student (317)  |  Subscribe (2)  |  Suck (8)  |  Sum (103)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Title (20)  |  Two (936)

[Decimal currency is desirable because] by that means all calculations of interest, exchange, insurance, and the like are rendered much more simple and accurate, and, of course, more within the power of the great mass of people. Whenever such things require much labor, time, and reflection, the greater number who do not know, are made the dupes of the lesser number who do.
Letter to Congress (15 Jan 1782). 'Coinage Scheme Proposed by Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance', from MS. letters and reports of the Superintendent of Finance, No, 137, Vol. 1, 289-300. Reprinted as Appendix, in Executive Documents, Senate of the U.S., Third Session of the Forty-Fifth Congress, 1878-79 (1879), 430.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Course (413)  |  Currency (3)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dupe (5)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Insurance (12)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Render (96)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whenever (81)

[I predict] the electricity generated by water power is the only thing that is going to keep future generations from freezing. Now we use coal whenever we produce electric power by steam engine, but there will be a time when there’ll be no more coal to use. That time is not in the very distant future. … Oil is too insignificant in its available supply to come into much consideration.
As quoted in 'Electricity Will Keep The World From Freezing Up', New York Times (12 Nov 1911), SM4.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Distant (33)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Generator (2)  |  Hydroelectricity (2)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  More (2558)  |  Oil (67)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Produce (117)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Power (6)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

[I] grew up as a disciple of science. I know its fascination. I have felt the godlike power man derives from his machines.
Quoted in 'Antiseptic Christianity', book review of Lindbergh, Of Flight and Life in Time magazine, (6 Sep 1948).
Science quotes on:  |  Derive (70)  |  Disciple (8)  |  Fascination (35)  |  God (776)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Know (1538)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)

[In Adelie Land, Antarctica, a howling river of] wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers.
Speaking at convention of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Norwich (1935). As quoted in 'Science: One Against Darwin', Time (23 Sep 1935).
Science quotes on:  |  Antarctica (8)  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Average (89)  |  Blow (45)  |  Compare (76)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Fall (243)  |  Future (467)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Month (91)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  River (140)  |  Ton (25)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Water (503)  |  Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (41)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Windmill (4)

[Radius]: You will work. You will build ... You will serve them... Robots of the world... The power of man has fallen... A new world has arisen. The rule of the Robots... March!
The word 'robot' was coined in this play for a new working class of automatons (from the Czech word robota meaning compulsory labour)
R.U.R. (1920), 89-90 in 1961 ed.
Science quotes on:  |  Automaton (12)  |  Build (211)  |  Class (168)  |  Labor (200)  |  Man (2252)  |  March (48)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Robot (14)  |  Rule (307)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

[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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Railway (19)  |  Saint (17)  |  Steam (81)  |  Train (118)  |  Virgin (11)  |  World (1850)

[Scientific research reveals] the majestic spectacle of the order of nature gradually unfolding itself to man’s consciousness and placing in his hands the implements of ever augmenting power to control his destinies and attain that ultimate comprehension of the universe which has in all ages constituted the supreme aspiration of man.
As quoted in book review by Ian Clunies Ross, "The Spirit of Research', The Australian Quarterly (Dec 1931), 3, No. 12, 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attain (126)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Control (182)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Implement (13)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Research (753)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unfold (15)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Universe (900)

[The octopus has] an amazing skin, because there are up to 20 million of these chromatophore pigment cells and to control 20 million of anything is going to take a lot of processing power. ... These animals have extraordinarily large, complicated brains to make all this work. ... And what does this mean about the universe and other intelligent life? The building blocks are potentially there and complexity will arise. Evolution is the force that's pushing that. I would expect, personally, a lot of diversity and a lot of complicated structures. It may not look like us, but my personal view is that there is intelligent life out there.
From transcript of PBS TV program Nova episode 'Origins: Where are the Aliens?' (2004).
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Arise (162)  |  Brain (281)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Cell (146)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Control (182)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Force (497)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Mean (810)  |  Million (124)  |  Octopus (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Processing Power (2)  |  Skin (48)  |  Structure (365)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

[The root cap of a plant], having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Adjoining (3)  |  Animal (651)  |  Anterior (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Botany (63)  |  Brain (281)  |  Direct (228)  |  End (603)  |  Impression (118)  |  Movement (162)  |  Organ (118)  |  Part (235)  |  Plant (320)  |  Receive (117)  |  Root (121)  |  Sense (785)

[The surplus of basic knowledge of the atomic nucleus was] largely used up [during the war with the atomic bomb as the dividend.] We must, without further delay restore this surplus in preparation for the important peacetime job for the nucleus - power production. ... Many of the proposed applications of atomic power - even for interplanetary rockets - seem to be within the realm of possibility provided the economic factor is ruled out completely, and the doubtful physical and chemical factors are weighted heavily on the optimistic side. ... The development of economic atomic power is not a simple extrapolation of knowledge gained during the bomb work. It is a new and difficult project to reach a satisfactory answer. Needless to say, it is vital that the atomic policy legislation now being considered by the congress recognizes the essential nature of this peacetime job, and that it not only permits but encourages the cooperative research-engineering effort of industrial, government and university laboratories for the task. ... We must learn how to generate the still higher energy particles of the cosmic rays - up to 1,000,000,000 volts, for they will unlock new domains in the nucleus.
Addressing the American Institute of Electrical Engineering, in New York (24 Jan 1946). In Schenectady Gazette (25 Jan 1946),
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Application (257)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Completely (137)  |  Congress (20)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Delay (21)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dividend (3)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Effort (243)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Essential (210)  |  Extrapolation (6)  |  Gain (146)  |  Government (116)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Industry (159)  |  Job (86)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Learn (672)  |  Legislation (10)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Particle (200)  |  Peacetime (4)  |  Permit (61)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Production (190)  |  Project (77)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realm (87)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Simple (426)  |  Still (614)  |  Surplus (2)  |  Task (152)  |  University (130)  |  Unlock (12)  |  Unlocking (2)  |  Vital (89)  |  War (233)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World War II (9)

[To elucidate using models] the different combining powers in elementary atoms, I … select my illustrations from that most delightful of games, croquet. Let the croquet balls represent our atoms, and let us distinguish the atoms of different elements by different colours. The white balls are hydrogen, the green ones chlorine atoms; the atoms of fiery oxygen are red, those of nitrogen, blue; the carbon atoms, lastly, are naturally represented by black balls. But we have, in addition, exhibit the different combining powers of these atoms … by screwing into the balls a number of metallic arms (tubes and pins), which correspond respectively to the combining powers of the atoms represented … to join the balls … in imitation of the atomic edifices represented.
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:  |  Addition (70)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Atom (381)  |  Ball (64)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Croquet (2)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Game (104)  |  Green (65)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Model (106)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Number (710)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pin (20)  |  Represent (157)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Select (45)  |  White (132)

[W]e have made a thing, a most terrible weapon, that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world. We have made a thing that, by all standards of the world we grew up in, is an evil thing. And by doing so, by our participation in making it possible to make these things, we have raised again the question of whether science is good for man, of whether it is good to learn about the world, to try to understand it, to try to control it, to help give to the world of men increased insight, increased power. Because we are scientists, we must say an unalterable yes to these questions; it is our faith and our commitment, seldom made explicit, even more seldom challenged, that knowledge is a good in itself, knowledge and such power as must come with it.
Speech to the American Philosophical Society (Jan 1946). 'Atomic Weapons', printed in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 90(1), 7-10. In Deb Bennett-Woods, Nanotechnology: Ethics and Society (2008), 23. Identified as a speech to the society in Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), 323.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Control (182)  |  Doing (277)  |  Evil (122)  |  Explicit (3)  |  Faith (209)  |  Good (906)  |  Insight (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Participation (15)  |  Possible (560)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Weapon (98)  |  World (1850)

[Werhner von Braun] is a human leader whose eyes and thoughts have always been turned toward the stars. It would be foolish to assign rocketry success to one person totally. Components must necessarily be the work of many minds; so must successive stages of development. But because Wernher von Braun joins technical ability, passionate optimism, immense experience and uncanny organizing ability in the elusive power to create a team, he is the greatest human element behind today’s rocketry success
Quoted in 'Reach For The Stars', Time (17 Feb 1958), 71, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Behind (139)  |  Wernher von Braun (29)  |  Component (51)  |  Create (245)  |  Development (441)  |  Element (322)  |  Elusive (8)  |  Experience (494)  |  Eye (440)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immense (89)  |  Leader (51)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Organize (33)  |  Passionate (22)  |  Person (366)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Stage (152)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Success (327)  |  Successive (73)  |  Team (17)  |  Technical (53)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Turn (454)  |  Uncanny (5)  |  Work (1402)

[With] our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition. … We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. We might get away with it for a while, but eventually this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
In 'With Science on Our Side', Washington Post (9 Jan 1994).
Science quotes on:  |  Arranged (4)  |  Back (395)  |  Blow (45)  |  Blow Up (8)  |  Combustible (2)  |  Critical (73)  |  Decline (28)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Face (214)  |  Feel (371)  |  Good (906)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Slide (5)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)

The Mighty Task is Done

At last the mighty task is done;
Resplendent in the western sun
The Bridge looms mountain high;
Its titan piers grip ocean floor,
Its great steel arms link shore with shore,
Its towers pierce the sky.

On its broad decks in rightful pride,
The world in swift parade shall ride,
Throughout all time to be;
Beneath, fleet ships from every port,
Vast landlocked bay, historic fort,
And dwarfing all the sea.

To north, the Redwood Empires gates;
To south, a happy playground waits,
In Rapturous appeal;
Here nature, free since time began,
Yields to the restless moods of man,
Accepts his bonds of steel.

Launched midst a thousand hopes and fears,
Damned by a thousand hostile sneers,
Yet Neer its course was stayed,
But ask of those who met the foe
Who stood alone when faith was low,
Ask them the price they paid.

Ask of the steel, each strut and wire,
Ask of the searching, purging fire,
That marked their natal hour;
Ask of the mind, the hand, the heart,
Ask of each single, stalwart part,
What gave it force and power.

An Honored cause and nobly fought
And that which they so bravely wrought,
Now glorifies their deed,
No selfish urge shall stain its life,
Nor envy, greed, intrigue, nor strife,
Nor false, ignoble creed.

High overhead its lights shall gleam,
Far, far below lifes restless stream,
Unceasingly shall flow;
For this was spun its lithe fine form,
To fear not war, nor time, nor storm,
For Fate had meant it so.

Written upon completion of the building of the Golden Gate Bridge, May 1937. In Allen Brown, Golden Gate: biography of a Bridge (1965), 229.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bay (6)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Bond (46)  |  Bravery (2)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bridge Engineering (8)  |  Cause (561)  |  Course (413)  |  Creed (28)  |  Deck (3)  |  Deed (34)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Envy (15)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flow (89)  |  Foe (11)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Fort (2)  |  Free (239)  |  Gate (33)  |  Golden Gate Bridge (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greed (17)  |  Happy (108)  |  Heart (243)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Honor (57)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hour (192)  |  Last (425)  |  Launch (21)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Loom (20)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ocean Floor (6)  |  Parade (3)  |  Playground (6)  |  Poem (104)  |  Price (57)  |  Pride (84)  |  Rapture (8)  |  Redwood (8)  |  Ride (23)  |  Sea (326)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shore (25)  |  Single (365)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sneer (9)  |  South (39)  |  Steel (23)  |  Storm (56)  |  Stream (83)  |  Strut (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Task (152)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tower (45)  |  Vast (188)  |  War (233)  |  Western (45)  |  Wire (36)  |  World (1850)  |  Yield (86)

[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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Past (355)  |  Persist (13)  |  Pride (84)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Soon (187)  |  Warning (18)  |  Will (2350)

[Editorial cartoon showing an executive sitting behind a desk with a Big Oil nameplate]
You want Coal? We own the mines.
You want oil and gas? We own the wells.
You want nuclear energy? We own the uranium.
You want solar power? We own the er..ah..
Solar power isn't feasible.
Newspaper
Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News. Please contact webmaster if you know the date of publication. It was on the cover of the book Solar Gas (1979) by David Hoye.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Big Oil (2)  |  Coal (64)  |  Energy (373)  |  Feasibility (4)  |  Gas (89)  |  Mine (78)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Oil (67)  |  Owner (5)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Solar Power (10)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Want (504)  |  Well (14)

[When questioned on his longevity] First of all, I selected my ancestors very wisely. ... They were long-lived, healthy people. Then, as a chemist, I know how to eat, how to exercise, keep my blood circulating. ... I don't worry. I don't get angry at people. I don't worry about things I can't help. I do what I can to make the world a better place to live, but I don't complain if things aren't right. As a scientist I take the world as I find it.
[About celebrating his 77th birthday by swimming a half mile in 22 minutes] I used swim fins and webbed gloves because a man of intelligence should apply his power efficiently, not just churn the water.
As quoted in obituary by Wallace Turner, 'Joel Hildebrand, 101', New York Times (3 May 1983), D27.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Anger (21)  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Better (493)  |  Birthday (9)  |  Blood (144)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Churn (4)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fin (4)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Glove (4)  |  Health (210)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Keeping (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Lived (2)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Minute (129)  |  Obituary (11)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Question (649)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Select (45)  |  Selection (130)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Water (503)  |  Web (17)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)  |  Worry (34)

A l’aide de ces sciences expérimentales actives, l’homme devient un inventeur de phénomènes, un véritable contremaître de la création; et l'on ne saurait, sous ce rapport, assigner de limites à la puissance qu’il peut acquérir sur la nature, par les progrès futurs des sciences expérimentales
With the aid of these active experimental sciences man becomes an inventor of phenomena, a real foreman of creation; and under this head we cannot set limits to the power that he may gain over nature through future progress of the experimental sciences.
Original French text in Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1898), 32. English version from An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Aid (101)  |  Become (821)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Creation (350)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Future (467)  |  Gain (146)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rising (44)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Set (400)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Wholeness (9)

À mesure que la science rabaisse ainsi notre orgueil, elle augmente notre puissance.
Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.
Original French quote from Introduction à l’étude de la médecine expérimentale (1865), 141. As translated in Fielding H. Garrison, 'Medical Proverbs, Aphorisms and Epigrams', Bulletin of New York Academy of Medicine (Oct 1928), 4, No. 10, 997. The translation above is literal. For a clearer interpretation, see another version on this web page: “But by a marvellous compensation, science, in humbling our pride, proportionately increases our power.”
Science quotes on:  |  Humble (54)  |  Increase (225)  |  Pride (84)  |  Proportion (140)

Between the frontiers of the three super-states Eurasia, Oceania, and Eastasia, and not permanently in possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hongkong. These territories contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the Middle East or Southern India or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hardworking coolies, expended by their conquerors like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control more labour, to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control…
Thus George Orwell—in his only reference to the less-developed world.
I wish I could disagree with him. Orwell may have erred in not anticipating the withering of direct colonial controls within the “quadrilateral” he speaks about; he may not quite have gauged the vehemence of urges to political self-assertion. Nor, dare I hope, was he right in the sombre picture of conscious and heartless exploitation he has painted. But he did not err in predicting persisting poverty and hunger and overcrowding in 1984 among the less privileged nations.
I would like to live to regret my words but twenty years from now, I am positive, the less-developed world will be as hungry, as relatively undeveloped, and as desperately poor, as today.
'The Less-Developed World: How Can We be Optimists?' (1964). Reprinted in Ideals and Realities (1984), xv-xvi. Referencing a misquote from George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four (1949), Ch. 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Archipelago (7)  |  Armament (6)  |  Bottomless (7)  |  Coal (64)  |  Conqueror (8)  |  Control (182)  |  Corner (59)  |  Dare (55)  |  Develop (278)  |  Direct (228)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Heartless (3)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Oil (67)  |   George Orwell (4)  |  Persisting (2)  |  Picture (148)  |  Political (124)  |  Poor (139)  |  Positive (98)  |  Possession (68)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Race (278)  |  Regret (31)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Right (473)  |  Self (268)  |  Speak (240)  |  State (505)  |  Territory (25)  |  Today (321)  |  Turn (454)  |  Undeveloped (6)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Boss: Dilbert, You have been chosen to design the world’s safest nuclear power plant.
Dilbert: This is the great assignment that any engineer could hope for. I'm flattered by the trust you have in me.
Boss: By “safe” I mean “not near my house.”
Dilbert comic strip (18 Feb 2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Assignment (12)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Design (203)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Flattery (7)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  House (143)  |  Mean (810)  |  Near (3)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  Plant (320)  |  Safe (61)  |  Safest (7)  |  Safety (58)  |  Trust (72)  |  World (1850)

But how shall we this union well expresse?
Naught tyes the soule: her subtiltie is such
She moves the bodie, which she doth possesse.
Yet no part toucheth, but by Vertue's touch.
Then dwels she not therein as in a tent;
Nor as a pilot in his Ship doth sit;
Nor as the spider in his web is pent;
Nor as the Waxe retaines the print in it;
Nor as a Vessell water doth containe;
Nor as one Liquor in another shed;
Nor as the heate dath in the fire remaine;
Nor as a voice throughout the ayre is spred;
But as the faire and cheerfull morning light,
Doth here, and there, her silver beames impart,
And in an instant doth her selfe unite
To the transparent Aire, in all, and part:
Still resting whole, when blowes the Aire devide;
Abiding pure, when th' Aire is most corrupted;
Throughout the Aire her beames dispersing wide,
And when the Aire is tost, not interrupted:
So doth the piercing Soule the body fill;
Being all in all, and all in part diffus'd;
Indivisible, incorruptible still,
Not forc't, encountred, troubled or confus'd.
And as the Sunne above the light doth bring,
Tough we behold it in the Aire below;
So from th'eternall light the Soule doth spring,
Though in the Bodie she her powers do show.
From 'Nosce Teipsum' (1599), in Claire Howard (ed.), The Poems of Sir John Davies (1941), 151-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fire (203)  |  Impart (24)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Instant (46)  |  Light (635)  |  Morning (98)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Naught (10)  |  Pure (299)  |  Ship (69)  |  Show (353)  |  Silver (49)  |  Spider (14)  |  Spring (140)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tent (13)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tough (22)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Union (52)  |  Unite (43)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wide (97)

Epitaph of John Hunter
The Royal College of Surgeons of England have placed this tablet over the grave of Hunter, to record their admiration of his genius as a gifted interpreter of the Divine Power and Wisdom at work in the Laws of Organic Life, and their grateful veneration for his services to mankind as the Founder of Scientific Surgery.
Memorial brass in the floor of north aisle of Westminster Abbey, placed when Hunter's remains were reinterred there (28 Mar 1859). In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972), Vol. 6, 568.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  College (71)  |  Divine (112)  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Founder (26)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hunter (28)  |  John Hunter (8)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Organic (161)  |  Record (161)  |  Royal (56)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Tablet (6)  |  Westminster Abbey (2)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

Ipsa Scientia potestas est.
For also knowledge itself is power.
'Meditationes Sacrae' (1597), in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1887-1901), Vol. 7, 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Knowledge (1647)

Mais, par une merveilleuse compensation, à mesure que la science rabaisse ainsi notre orgueil, elle augmente notre puissance.
But by a marvellous compensation, science, in humbling our pride, proportionately increases our power.
Original French quote from Introduction à l’étude de la médecine expérimentale (1865), 141. As translated by H.C. Greene in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1949), 82. Most often seen quoted in a shorter, more literal translation as “Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride” (detailed elsewhere on this web page).
Science quotes on:  |  Compensation (8)  |  Increase (225)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Pride (84)  |  Proportion (140)

Naturae vero rerum vis atque maiestas in omnibus momentis fide caret si quis modo partes eius ac non totam conplectatur animo.
The power and majesty of the nature of the universe at every turn lacks credence if one’s mind embraces parts of it only and not the whole.
In Pliny: Natural History (1947), Vol. 2, Book 7, 511, as translated by H. Rackham
Science quotes on:  |  Embrace (47)  |  Lack (127)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Part (235)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)

Occult sciences. Those imaginary sciences of the middle ages which related to the influence of supernatural powers, such as alchemy, magic, necromancy, and astrology.
In Noah Webster, Noah Porter (supervising ed.) and Dorsey Gardner (ed.), Webster's Condensed Dictionary: A Condensed Dictionary of the English Language (1884, 1887), 385.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Imaginary (16)  |  Influence (231)  |  Magic (92)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Necromancy (3)  |  Occult (9)  |  Supernatural (26)

Qu. 31. Have not the small Particles of Bodies certain Powers, Virtues or Forces, by which they act at a distance, not only upon the Rays of Light for reflecting, refracting and reflecting them, but also upon one another for producing a great part of the Phænomena of Nature?
From Opticks, (1704, 2nd ed. 1718), Book 3, Query 31, 350.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Distance (171)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Light (635)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Particle (200)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reflecting (3)  |  Small (489)  |  Virtue (117)

Science for the Citizen is ... also written for the large and growing number of adolescents, who realize that they will be the first victims of the new destructive powers of science misapplied.
Science for the Citizen: A Self-Educator based on the Social Background of Scientific Discovery (1938), Author's Confessions, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Citizen (52)  |  First (1302)  |  Growing (99)  |  Large (398)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Realize (157)  |  Science And Society (25)  |  Victim (37)  |  Will (2350)

The Charms of Statistics.—It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown into its lakes, two nuisances would be got rid of at once. An Average is but a solitary fact, whereas if a single other fact be added to it, an entire Normal Scheme, which nearly corresponds to the observed one, starts potentially into existence. Some people hate the very name of statistics, but I find them full of beauty and interest. Whenever they are not brutalised, but delicately handled by the higher methods, and are warily interpreted, their power of dealing with complicated phenomena is extraordinary. They are the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of man.
Natural Inheritance (1889), 62-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Charm (54)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Cut (116)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dull (58)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flat (34)  |  Hate (68)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lake (36)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Name (359)  |  Native (41)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nuisance (10)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  People (1031)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Single (365)  |  Soul (235)  |  Start (237)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Through (846)  |  Tool (129)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Variety (138)  |  View (496)  |  Warily (2)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Why (491)

A ... hypothesis may be suggested, which supposes the word 'beginning' as applied by Moses in the first of the Book of Genesis, to express an undefined period of time which was antecedent to the last great change that affected the surface of the earth, and to the creation of its present animal and vegetable inhabitants; during which period a long series of operations and revolutions may have been going on, which, as they are wholly unconnected with the history of the human race, are passed over in silence by the sacred historian, whose only concern with them was largely to state, that the matter of the universe is not eternal and self-existent but was originally created by the power of the Almighty.
Vindiciae Geologicae (1820), 31-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Almighty (23)  |  Animal (651)  |  Applied (176)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Book (413)  |  Change (639)  |  Concern (239)  |  Creation (350)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Express (192)  |  First (1302)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Geology (240)  |  Great (1610)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Pass (241)  |  Period (200)  |  Present (630)  |  Race (278)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Self (268)  |  Series (153)  |  Silence (62)  |  State (505)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unconnected (10)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Word (650)

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.
'Of the Bird's Movement' from Codice Atlantico 161 r.a., in Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks, trans. E. MacCurdy (1906), Vol. 1, 153.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Bird (163)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Degree (277)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Flight (101)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Say (989)  |  Strength (139)

A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between ‘external’ forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and ‘internal’ forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But Western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development–what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called ‘laws of form.’
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Balance (82)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Call (781)  |  Complete (209)  |  Constraint (13)  |  Darwinian (10)  |  Development (441)  |  Downgrade (2)  |  Emphasis (18)  |  Environment (239)  |  Equally (129)  |  Err (5)  |  Evolution (635)  |  External (62)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Ignoring (11)  |  Impose (22)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Internal (69)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Local (25)  |  Must (1525)  |  Old (499)  |  Place (192)  |  Practically (10)  |  Represent (157)  |  Selection (130)  |  Structure (365)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Western (45)

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.
In On Liberty (1859), 190-191.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristocracy (7)  |  Body (557)  |  Cast (69)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Despotism (2)  |  Education (423)  |  Efficient (34)  |  Establish (63)  |  Exactly (14)  |  Exist (458)  |  Generation (256)  |  Government (116)  |  Lead (391)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mold (37)  |  Monarch (6)  |  Natural (810)  |  People (1031)  |  Please (68)  |  Predominant (4)  |  Priesthood (3)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Success (327)  |  Tendency (110)

A great advantage of X-ray analysis as a method of chemical structure analysis is its power to show some totally unexpected and surprising structure with, at the same time, complete certainty.
In 'X-ray Analysis of Complicated Molecules', Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1964). In Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1942-1962 (1964), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complete (209)  |  Great (1610)  |  Method (531)  |  Ray (115)  |  Show (353)  |  Structure (365)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  X-ray (43)  |  X-ray Crystallography (12)

Sigmund Freud quote: A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be el
A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power.
Psychical (or Mental) Treatment (1905), In James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1953), Vol. 7, 283.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Explain (334)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Former (138)  |  Hard (246)  |  Layman (21)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Set (400)  |  Speech (66)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Wrong (246)

A lecturer should … give them [the audience] full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.
In Letter to his friend Benjamin Abbott (11 Jun 1813), collected in Bence Jones, Life and Letters of Faraday, Vol. 1, 73. Faraday was age 21, less than a year since completing his bookbinder apprenticeship, and had decided upon “giving up trade and taking to science.” From several letters, various opinions about lecturing were gathered in an article, 'Faraday on Scientific Lecturing', Norman Locker (ed.), Nature (23 Oct 1873), 8, 524.
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Belief (615)  |  Exert (40)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Reason (766)  |  Science And Education (17)

A moment’s consideration of this case shows what a really great advance in the theory and practise of breeding has been obtained through the discovery of Mendel’s law. What a puzzle this case would have presented to the biologist ten years ago! Agouti crossed with chocolate gives in the second filial generation (not in the first) four varieties, viz., agouti, chocolate, black and cinnamon. We could only have shaken our heads and looked wise (or skeptical).
Then we had no explanation to offer for such occurrences other than the “instability of color characters under domestication,” the “effects of inbreeding,” “maternal impressions.” Serious consideration would have been given to the proximity of cages containing both black and cinnamon-agouti mice.
Now we have a simple, rational explanation, which anyone can put to the test. We are able to predict the production of new varieties, and to produce them.
We must not, of course, in our exuberance, conclude that the powers of the hybridizer know no limits. The result under consideration consists, after all, only in the making of new combinations of unit characters, but it is much to know that these units exist and that all conceivable combinations of them are ordinarily capable of production. This valuable knowledge we owe to the discoverer and to the rediscoverers of Mendel’s law.
'New Colour Variety of the Guinea Pig', Science, 1908, 28, 250-252.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Both (496)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Cage (12)  |  Capable (174)  |  Character (259)  |  Chocolate (5)  |  Color (155)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Consist (223)  |  Course (413)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Domestication (5)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Impression (118)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Making (300)  |  Gregor Mendel (22)  |  Moment (260)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Predict (86)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Rational (95)  |  Result (700)  |  Serious (98)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Wise (143)  |  Year (963)

A New Arithmetic: “I am not much of a mathematician,” said the cigarette, “but I can add nervous troubles to a boy, I can subtract from his physical energy, I can multiply his aches and pains, I can divide his mental powers, I can take interest from his work and discount his chances for success.”
Anonymous
In Henry Ford, The Case Against the Little White Slaver (1914), Vol. 3, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Ache (7)  |  Addition (70)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Boy (100)  |  Chance (244)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Divide (77)  |  Energy (373)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Nerve (82)  |  New (1273)  |  Pain (144)  |  Physical (518)  |  Subtraction (4)  |  Success (327)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Work (1402)

A nuclear power plant is infinitely safer than eating, because 300 people choke to death on food every year. (1977)
Quoted in G. Barry Golson (ed.) The Playboy Interview (1981).
Science quotes on:  |  Choking (3)  |  Death (406)  |  Eating (46)  |  Food (213)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  People (1031)  |  Plant (320)  |  Safety (58)  |  Year (963)

A principle of induction would be a statement with the help of which we could put inductive inferences into a logically acceptable form. In the eyes of the upholders of inductive logic, a principle of induction is of supreme importance for scientific method: “... this principle”, says Reichenbach, “determines the truth of scientific theories. To eliminate it from science would mean nothing less than to deprive science of the power to decide the truth or falsity of its theories. Without it, clearly, science would no longer have the right to distinguish its theories from the fanciful and arbitrary creations of the poet’s mind.” Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. Indeed, if there were such a thing as a purely logical principle of induction, there would be no problem of induction; for in this case, all inductive inferences would have to be regarded as purely logical or tautological transformations, just like inferences in inductive logic. Thus the principle of induction must be a synthetic statement; that is, a statement whose negation is not self-contradictory but logically possible. So the question arises why such a principle should be accepted at all, and how we can justify its acceptance on rational grounds.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Arbitrary (27)  |  Arise (162)  |  Case (102)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Creation (350)  |  Decide (50)  |  Deprive (14)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Eye (440)  |  Falsity (16)  |  Fanciful (6)  |  Form (976)  |  Ground (222)  |  Help (116)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Inference (45)  |  Justify (26)  |  Less (105)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Negation (2)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Poet (97)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Rational (95)  |  Regard (312)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Self (268)  |  Statement (148)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Tautological (2)  |  Tautology (4)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Why (491)

A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it.
Writing for the Court, New Jersey v. New York, et al., 283 U.S. 336, 342 (1931), His ruling declared that the water of the Delaware River must be divided among states on a basis of need, rather than on the geographic mileage of the resource controlled by each state. Thus a river was to be regarded as a shared economic treasure. An upstream state must not willy-nilly deprive a downstream state of an important water resource. As quoted and explained in Tim Palmer, Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement (2004), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Necessity (197)  |  Offer (142)  |  Ration (2)  |  River (140)  |  Treasure (59)

A science is not mere knowledge, it is knowledge which has undergone a process of intellectual digestion. It is the grasp of many things brought together in one, and hence is its power; for, properly speaking, it is Science that is power, not Knowledge..,
Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education. Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin (1852), Discourse 5, 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Digestion (29)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Process (439)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)

A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
Karl Marx
Introductory sentence, The Communist Manifesto (1848). Collected in The Library of Original Sources (1907), Vol. 10, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Alliance (5)  |  Communism (11)  |  Enter (145)  |  Europe (50)  |  France (29)  |  French (21)  |  German (37)  |  Germany (16)  |  Haunt (6)  |  Holy (35)  |  Old (499)  |  Police (5)  |  Pope (10)  |  Radical (28)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Spy (9)

A tool is but the extension of a man’s hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. He that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well being of mankind.
In Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887), 44. It appears as one of the quotations featured in one of the hallways of the first floor of the U.S. Capitols House wing, which are known as the Cox Corridors, after Allyn Cox, the artist who decorated them.
Science quotes on:  |  Augment (12)  |  Being (1276)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Extension (60)  |  Hand (149)  |  Invention (400)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Tool (129)

About the year 1772, being then an apprentice to a wheel-wright, or wagon maker, I laboured to discover some means of propelling land carriages without animal power. … one of my brothers [told me of] blacksmith’s boys, who, for amusement, had stopped up the touch hole of a gun barrel, then put in about a gill of water, and rammed down a tight wad; after which they put the breech in the smith’s fire, when it discharged itself with as loud a crack as if it had been loaded with powder. It immediately occurred to me, that here was the power to propel any wagon, if I could only apply it.
From 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 205.
Science quotes on:  |  Amusement (37)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apply (170)  |  Apprentice (4)  |  Barrel (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biography (254)  |  Blacksmith (5)  |  Boy (100)  |  Brother (47)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Crack (15)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Fire (203)  |  Gill (3)  |  Gun (10)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Labor (200)  |  Loud (9)  |  Maker (34)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Powder (9)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Ram (3)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Touch (146)  |  Wad (2)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Water (503)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Year (963)

Above, far above the prejudices and passions of men soar the laws of nature. Eternal and immutable, they are the expression of the creative power they represent what is, what must be, what otherwise could not be. Man can come to understand them: he is incapable of changing them.
From Cours d’Economie Politique (1896-97), as given in Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences (1993), Issues 131-133, 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Creative (144)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Expression (181)  |  Far (158)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Passion (121)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Represent (157)  |  Soar (23)  |  Understand (648)

According to the common law of nature, deficiency of power is supplied by duration of time.
'Geological Illustrations', Appendix to G. Cuvier, Essay on the Theory of the Earth, trans. R. Jameson (1827), 430.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Common (447)  |  Deficiency (15)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Time (1911)

Accordingly, we find Euler and D'Alembert devoting their talent and their patience to the establishment of the laws of rotation of the solid bodies. Lagrange has incorporated his own analysis of the problem with his general treatment of mechanics, and since his time M. Poinsôt has brought the subject under the power of a more searching analysis than that of the calculus, in which ideas take the place of symbols, and intelligent propositions supersede equations.
J. C. Maxwell on Louis Poinsôt (1777-1859) in 'On a Dynamical Top' (1857). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 1, 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Jean le Rond D’Alembert (13)  |  Equation (138)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Find (1014)  |  General (521)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Law (913)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  More (2558)  |  Patience (58)  |  Louis Poinsot (4)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Solid (119)  |  Subject (543)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Talent (99)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatment (135)

Acid Salts have the Power of Destroying the Blewness of the Infusion of our Wood [lignum nephreticum], and those Liquors indiscriminatly that abound with Sulphurous Salts, (under which I comprehend the Urinous and Volatile Salts of Animal Substances, and the Alcalisate or fixed Salts that are made by Incineration) have the virtue of Restoring it.
Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664), 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Acid (83)  |  Animal (651)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Indicator (6)  |  Salt (48)  |  Substance (253)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wood (97)

After a duration of a thousand years, the power of astrology broke down when, with Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, the progress of astronomy overthrew the false hypothesis upon which the entire structure rested, namely the geocentric system of the universe. The fact that the earth revolves in space intervened to upset the complicated play of planetary influences, and the silent stars, related to the unfathomable depths of the sky, no longer made their prophetic voices audible to mankind. Celestial mechanics and spectrum analysis finally robbed them of their mysterious prestige.
Franz Cumont, translated by J.B. Baker, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans (1912, 2007), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Celestial Mechanics (4)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Depth (97)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Geocentric (6)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Influence (231)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rest (287)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Sky (174)  |  Space (523)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unfathomable (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Upset (18)  |  Year (963)

Alcmaeon maintains that the bond of health is the 'equal balance' of the powers, moist and dry, cold and hot, bitter and sweet, and the rest, while the 'supremacy' of one of them is the cause of disease; for the supremacy of either is destructive. Illness comes aboutdirectly through excess of heat or cold, indirectly through surfeit or deficiency of nourishment; and its centre is either the blood or the marrow or the brain. It sometimes arises in these centres from external causes, moisture of some sort or environment or exhaustion or hardship or similar causes. Health on the other hand is the proportionate admixture of the qualities.
About Alcmaeon of Croton. In Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (1976) 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Balance (82)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Blood (144)  |  Bond (46)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Deficiency (15)  |  Disease (340)  |  Dry (65)  |  Environment (239)  |  Excess (23)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Health (210)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Illness (35)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Moist (13)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Rest (287)  |  Supremacy (4)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Through (846)

Alcmaeon was the first to define the difference between man and animals, saying that man differs from the latter in the fact that he alone has the power of understanding.
On Sense Perceptions, section 25. In Edwin Clarke and C. D. O'Malley, The Human Brain and Spinal Cord (1968), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Man (2252)  |  Man And Animals (7)  |  Understanding (527)

All in all, the total amount of power conceivably available from the uranium and thorium supplies of the earth is about twenty times that available from the coal and oil we have left.
In The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science: The physical sciences (1960), 371.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Available (80)  |  Coal (64)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Left (15)  |  Oil (67)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thorium (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Total (95)  |  Uranium (21)

All knowledge is profitable; profitable in its ennobling effect on the character, in the pleasure it imparts in its acquisition, as well as in the power it gives over the operations of mind and of matter. All knowledge is useful; every part of this complex system of nature is connected with every other. Nothing is isolated. The discovery of to-day, which appears unconnected with any useful process, may, in the course of a few years, become the fruitful source of a thousand inventions.
In 'Report of the Secretary', Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1851 (1852), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Become (821)  |  Character (259)  |  Complex (202)  |  Connect (126)  |  Course (413)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Ennoble (8)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Impart (24)  |  Invention (400)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Process (439)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Source (101)  |  System (545)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unconnected (10)  |  Useful (260)  |  Year (963)

All power, all subordination rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world, and the very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple, and society disappears
In Joseph de Maistre and Richard A. Lebrun (trans.), The St. Petersburg Dialogues (1993), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Association (49)  |  Bond (46)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Give (208)  |  Horror (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Moment (260)  |  Order (638)  |  Remove (50)  |  Rest (287)  |  Society (350)  |  Subordination (5)  |  Throne (8)  |  Topple (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

All Science is necessarily prophetic, so truly so, that the power of prophecy is the test, the infallible criterion, by which any presumed Science is ascertained to be actually & verily science. The Ptolemaic Astronomy was barely able to prognosticate a lunar eclipse; with Kepler and Newton came Science and Prophecy.
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1830). In The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1976), John Cohner (ed.), Vol. 10, 118, footnote 1 on Coleridge's annotation.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Infallible (18)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Prophecy (14)  |  Test (221)  |  Truly (118)

All the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and...however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties.
A Treatise on Human Nature (1739-40), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1888), introduction, xix.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Greater (288)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Lie (370)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Passage (52)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Religion (369)  |  Return (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Still (614)  |  Wide (97)

All things on the earth are the result of chemical combination. The operation by which the commingling of molecules and the interchange of atoms take place we can imitate in our laboratories; but in nature they proceed by slow degrees, and, in general, in our hands they are distinguished by suddenness of action. In nature chemical power is distributed over a long period of time, and the process of change is scarcely to be observed. By acts we concentrate chemical force, and expend it in producing a change which occupies but a few hours at most.
In chapter 'Chemical Forces', The Poetry of Science: Or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of Nature (1848), 235-236. Charles Dicken used this quote, with his own sub-head of 'Relative Importance Of Time To Man And Nature', to conclude his review of the book, published in The Examiner (1848).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Atom (381)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Hour (192)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Interchange (4)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Long (778)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Period (200)  |  Place (192)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Process (439)  |  Producing (6)  |  Result (700)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Slow (108)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

Already the steam-engine works our mines, impels our ships, excavates our ports and our rivers, forges iron, fashions wood, grinds grain, spins and weaves our cloths, transports the heaviest burdens, etc. It appears that it must some day serve as a universal motor, and be substituted for animal power, waterfalls, and air currents.
'Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu' (1824) translated by R.H. Thurston in Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power (1890), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Already (226)  |  Animal (651)  |  Burden (30)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Current (122)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Excavation (8)  |  Fashioning (2)  |  Forge (10)  |  Grain (50)  |  Grind (11)  |  Impelling (2)  |  Iron (99)  |  Mine (78)  |  Motor (23)  |  Must (1525)  |  Port (2)  |  River (140)  |  Serving (15)  |  Ship (69)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Transport (31)  |  Universal (198)  |  Waterfall (5)  |  Weave (21)  |  Weaving (6)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

Although [Charles Darwin] would patiently go on repeating experiments where there was any good to be gained, he could not endure having to repeat an experiment which ought, if complete care had been taken, to have told its story at first—and this gave him a continual anxiety that the experiment should not be wasted; he felt the experiment to be sacred, however slight a one it was. He wished to learn as much as possible from an experiment, so that he did not confine himself to observing the single point to which the experiment was directed, and his power of seeing a number of other things was wonderful. ... Any experiment done was to be of some use, and ... strongly he urged the necessity of keeping the notes of experiments which failed, and to this rule he always adhered.
In Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1908), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Care (203)  |  Complete (209)  |  Continual (44)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Direct (228)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Note (39)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Single (365)  |  Story (122)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wonderful (155)

Although we know nothing of what an atom is, yet we cannot resist forming some idea of a small particle, which represents it to the mind ... there is an immensity of facts which justify us in believing that the atoms of matter are in some way endowed or associated with electrical powers, to which they owe their most striking qualities, and amongst them their mutual chemical affinity.
[Summarizing his investigations in electrolysis.]
Experimental Researches in Electricity (1839), section 852. Cited in Laurie M. Brown, Abraham Pais, Brian Pippard, Twentieth Century Physics (1995), Vol. 1, 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Affinity (27)  |  Atom (381)  |  Charge (63)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electrolysis (8)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Forming (42)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Owe (71)  |  Particle (200)  |  Represent (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Small (489)  |  Striking (48)  |  Way (1214)

Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature: no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.
Journal of Researches: into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World (1839), ch. XXIII, 604-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Beagle (14)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Breath (61)  |  Death (406)  |  Decay (59)  |  Feel (371)  |  Forest (161)  |  God (776)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Production (190)  |  Scene (36)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Stand (284)  |  Temple (45)

An egg is a chemical process, but it is not a mere chemical process. It is one that is going places—even when, in our world of chance and contingency, it ends up in an omelet and not in a chicken. Though it surely be a chemical process, we cannot understand it adequately without knowing the kind of chicken it has the power to become.
'The Changing Impact of Darwin on Philosophy', Journal of the History of Ideas (1961), 22, 457.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Chicken (12)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Egg (71)  |  End (603)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Process (439)  |  Surely (101)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  World (1850)

An inducement must be offered to those who are engaged in the industrial exploitation of natural sources of power, as waterfalls, by guaranteeing greater returns on the capital invested than they can secure by local development of the property.
In 'The Problem of Increasing Human Energy', Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (Jun 1900), 210. Collected in My Inventions: And Other Writings (2016), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Capital (16)  |  Development (441)  |  Engage (41)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Furthermore (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Inducement (3)  |  Industrial (15)  |  Invest (20)  |  Local (25)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Offer (142)  |  Prop (6)  |  Return (133)  |  Secure (23)  |  Source (101)  |  Waterfall (5)

And by the influence of heat, light, and electrical powers, there is a constant series of changes [in animal and vegetal substances]; matter assumes new forms, the destruction of one order of beings tends to the conservation of another, solution and consolidation, decay and renovation, are connected, and whilst the parts of the system, continue in a state of fluctuation and change, the order and harmony of the whole remain unalterable.
The Elements of Agricultural Chemistry (1813), in J. Davy (ed.) The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy(1839-40), Vol 7, 182.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Connect (126)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Consolidation (4)  |  Constant (148)  |  Continue (179)  |  Decay (59)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Fluctuation (15)  |  Form (976)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Heat (180)  |  Influence (231)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Remain (355)  |  Series (153)  |  Solution (282)  |  State (505)  |  Substance (253)  |  System (545)  |  Tend (124)  |  Vegetal (2)  |  Whole (756)

And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness”' as by a boundary; not by something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle itself is a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself-do you want a name for this world? A solution for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?—This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!
The Will to Power (Notes written 1883-1888), book 4, no. 1067. Trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale and ed. W. Kaufmann (1968), 549-50.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Back (395)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Best (467)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Circle (117)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Course (413)  |  Definite (114)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disgust (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evil (122)  |  Extend (129)  |  Feel (371)  |  Firm (47)  |  Flood (52)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Goal (155)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Home (184)  |  Income (18)  |  Increase (225)  |  Iron (99)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Monster (33)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nothingness (12)  |  Return (133)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Sea (326)  |  Self (268)  |  Set (400)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Transform (74)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Voluptuous (3)  |  Want (504)  |  Wave (112)  |  Weariness (6)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Same (166)  |  Scorch (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tame (4)

And men ought to know that from nothing else but thence [from the brain] come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear, and know what are foul and hat are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what unsavory... And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us... All these things we endure from the brain, when it is not healthy... In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which emanate from the air, when it [the brain] happens to be in a sound state.
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bad (185)  |  Become (821)  |  Brain (281)  |  Delight (111)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Foul (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Grief (20)  |  Happen (282)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Hear (144)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Neuroscience (3)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organ (118)  |  See (1094)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sport (23)  |  State (505)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

And therefore though Adam was framed without this part (a navel), as having no other womb than that of his proper principles, yet was not his posterity without the same: for the seminality of his fabric contained the power thereof; and was endued with the science of those parts whose predestinations upon succession it did accomplish.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Adam (7)  |  Contain (68)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Navel (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Succession (80)  |  Womb (25)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Receive (117)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

And, in this case, science could learn an important lesson from the literati–who love contingency for the same basic reason that scientists tend to regard the theme with suspicion. Because, in contingency lies the power of each person, to make a difference in an unconstrained world bristling with possibilities, and nudgeable by the smallest of unpredictable inputs into markedly different channels spelling either vast improvement or potential disaster.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Bristle (3)  |  Case (102)  |  Channel (23)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Important (229)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Input (2)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Lie (370)  |  Love (328)  |  Markedly (2)  |  Person (366)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Potential (75)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Spell (9)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theme (17)  |  Unconstrained (2)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Vast (188)  |  World (1850)

André Weil suggested that there is a logarithmic law at work: first-rate people attract other first-rate people, but second-rate people tend to hire third-raters, and third-rate people hire fifth-raters. If a dean or a president is genuinely interested in building and maintaining a high-quality university (and some of them are), then he must not grant complete self-determination to a second-rate department; he must, instead, use his administrative powers to intervene and set things right. That’s one of the proper functions of deans and presidents, and pity the poor university in which a large proportion of both the faculty and the administration are second-raters; it is doomed to diverge to minus infinity.
In I Want to be a Mathematician: an Automathography (1985), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Administration (15)  |  Attract (25)  |  Both (496)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Complete (209)  |  Dean (2)  |  Department (93)  |  Determination (80)  |  Diverge (3)  |  Doom (34)  |  Faculty (76)  |  First (1302)  |  First-Rate (2)  |  Function (235)  |  Grant (76)  |  High (370)  |  High-Quality (2)  |  Hire (7)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intervene (8)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Minus (7)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Poor (139)  |  President (36)  |  Proper (150)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Quality (139)  |  Right (473)  |  Second-Rate (4)  |  Self (268)  |  Set (400)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  University (130)  |  Use (771)  |  André Weil (3)  |  Work (1402)

Archimedes … had stated that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. … the apparatus was, in most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  According (236)  |  Actual (118)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arsenal (5)  |  Art (680)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  At Hand (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boast (22)  |  Burden (30)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Cord (3)  |  Defensive (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Far (158)  |  Fix (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Freight (3)  |  Full (68)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Hiero (2)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hold (96)  |  King (39)  |  Labor (200)  |  Load (12)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Offensive (4)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pulley (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ready (43)  |  Rely (12)  |  Remove (50)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Show (353)  |  Siege (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Small (489)  |  Smoothly (2)  |  State (505)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strike (72)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weight (140)

Armed with all the powers, enjoying all the wealth they owe to science, our societies are still trying to practice and to teach systems of values already destroyed at the roots by that very science. Man knows at last that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the universe, whence which he has emerged by chance. His duty, like his fate, is written nowhere.
In Jacques Monod and Austryn Wainhouse (trans.), Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (1971), 171.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Already (226)  |  Arm (82)  |  Chance (244)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Fate (76)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Owe (71)  |  Practice (212)  |  Religion (369)  |  Root (121)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Trying (144)  |  Universe (900)  |  Value (393)  |  Wealth (100)

As a scientist and geneticist I started to feel that science would probably soon reach the point where its interference into the life processes would be counterproductive if a properly designed governing policy was not implemented. A heavily overcrowded planet, ninety-five percent urbanized with nuclear energy as the main source of energy and with all aspects of life highly computerized, is not too pleasant a place for human life. The life of any individual soon will be predictable from birth to death. Medicine, able to cure almost everything, will make the load of accumulated defects too heavy in the next two or three centuries. The artificial prolongation of life, which looked like a very bright idea when I started research in aging about twenty-five years ago, has now lost its attractiveness for me. This is because I now know that the aging process is so multiform and complex that the real technology and chemistry of its prevention by artificial interference must be too complex and expensive. It would be the privilege of a few, not the method for the majority. I also was deeply concerned about the fact that most research is now either directly or indirectly related to military projects and objectives for power.
Quoted in 'Zhores A(leksandrovich) Medvedev', Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002.
Science quotes on:  |  Aging (9)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Birth (154)  |  Bright (81)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concern (239)  |  Cure (124)  |  Death (406)  |  Defect (31)  |  Design (203)  |  Energy (373)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Future (467)  |  Geneticist (16)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Governing (20)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Implement (13)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interference (22)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Majority (68)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Method (531)  |  Military (45)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Objective (96)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Process (439)  |  Project (77)  |  Reach (286)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Soon (187)  |  Start (237)  |  Technology (281)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

As geologists, we learn that it is not only the present condition of the globe that has been suited to the accommodation of myriads of living creatures, but that many former states also have been equally adapted to the organization and habits of prior races of beings. The disposition of the seas, continents, and islands, and the climates have varied; so it appears that the species have been changed, and yet they have all been so modelled, on types analogous to those of existing plants and animals, as to indicate throughout a perfect harmony of design and unity of purpose. To assume that the evidence of the beginning or end of so vast a scheme lies within the reach of our philosophical inquiries, or even of our speculations, appears to us inconsistent with a just estimate of the relations which subsist between the finite powers of man and the attributes of an Infinite and Eternal Being.
Concluding remark, Principles of Geology(1833), Vol. 3, 384-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodation (9)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Animal (651)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Condition (362)  |  Continent (79)  |  Creature (242)  |  Design (203)  |  Disposition (44)  |  End (603)  |  Equally (129)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Finite (60)  |  Former (138)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Island (49)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Organization (120)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Plant (320)  |  Present (630)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Sea (326)  |  Species (435)  |  Speculation (137)  |  State (505)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Type (171)  |  Unity (81)  |  Vast (188)

As he [Clifford] spoke he appeared not to be working out a question, but simply telling what he saw. Without any diagram or symbolic aid he described the geometrical conditions on which the solution depended, and they seemed to stand out visibly in space. There were no longer consequences to be deduced, but real and evident facts which only required to be seen. … So whole and complete was his vision that for the time the only strange thing was that anybody should fail to see it in the same way. When one endeavored to call it up again, and not till then, it became clear that the magic of genius had been at work, and that the common sight had been raised to that higher perception by the power that makes and transforms ideas, the conquering and masterful quality of the human mind which Goethe called in one word das Dämonische.
In Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays by William Kingdon Clifford(1879), Vol. 1, Introduction, 4-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Appear (122)  |  Call (781)  |  William Kingdon Clifford (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Complete (209)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Depend (238)  |  Describe (132)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Evident (92)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Higher (37)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Magic (92)  |  Masterful (2)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Perception (97)  |  Quality (139)  |  Question (649)  |  Raise (38)  |  Real (159)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sight (135)  |  Solution (282)  |  Space (523)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stand Out (5)  |  Strange (160)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transform (74)  |  Visible (87)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

As he sat alone in a garden, he [Isaac Newton in 1666, age 24] fell into a speculation on the power of gravity; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually thought: why not as high as the moon? said he to himself; and if so, her motion must be influenced by it; perhaps she is retained in her orbit thereby.
View of Newton's Philosophy (1728), preface. In William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences (1847), Vol. 2, 166. Pemberton's narrative is based on firsthand conversations with Newton himself.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Alone (324)  |  Building (158)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extend (129)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gravity (140)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Moon (252)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rise (169)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Summit (27)  |  Thought (995)  |  Top (100)  |  Usually (176)  |  Why (491)

As knowledge advances, science ceases to scoff at religion; and religion ceases to frown on science. The hour of mockery by the one, and of reproof by the other, is passing away. Henceforth, they will dwell together in unity and goodwill. They will mutually illustrate the wisdom, power, and grace of God. Science will adorn and enrich religion; and religion will ennoble and sanctify science.
In Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 505.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Cease (81)  |  Dwell (19)  |  Ennoble (8)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Frown (5)  |  God (776)  |  Goodwill (6)  |  Grace (31)  |  Hour (192)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mockery (2)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Religion (369)  |  Reproof (2)  |  Sanctify (3)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scoff (8)  |  Together (392)  |  Unity (81)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)

As physicists have arranged an extensive series of effects under the general term of Heat, so they have named another series Light, and a third they have called Electricity. We find ... that all these principles are capable of being produced through the medium of living bodies, for nearly all animals have the power of evolving heat; many insects, moreover, can voluntarily emit light; and the property of producing electricity is well evinced in the terrible shock of the electric eel, as well as in that of some other creatures. We are indeed in the habit of talking of the Electric fluid, or the Galvanic fluid, but this in reality is nothing but a licence of expression suitable to our finite and material notions.
In the Third Edition of Elements of Electro-Metallurgy: or The Art of Working in Metals by the Galvanic Fluid (1851), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Capable (174)  |  Creature (242)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Emit (15)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finding (34)  |  Finite (60)  |  Fluid (54)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heat (180)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insect (89)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Body (3)  |  Material (366)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Property (177)  |  Reality (274)  |  Series (153)  |  Shock (38)  |  Talking (76)  |  Term (357)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Through (846)

As soon … as it was observed that the stars retained their relative places, that the times of their rising and setting varied with the seasons, that sun, moon, and planets moved among them in a plane, … then a new order of things began.… Science had begun, and the first triumph of it was the power of foretelling the future; eclipses were perceived to recur in cycles of nineteen years, and philosophers were able to say when an eclipse was to be looked for. The periods of the planets were determined. Theories were invented to account for their eccentricities; and, false as those theories might be, the position of the planets could be calculated with moderate certainty by them.
Lecture delivered to the Royal Institution (5 Feb 1864), 'On the Science of History'. Collected in Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain with Abstracts of the Discourses (1866), Vol. 4, 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  First (1302)  |  Foretelling (4)  |  Future (467)  |  Look (584)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Order (638)  |  Period (200)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Plane (22)  |  Planet (402)  |  Recurring (12)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rising (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Season (47)  |  Setting (44)  |  Soon (187)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Year (963)

As the world of science has grown in size and in power, its deepest problems have changed from the epistemological to the social.
Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (1971), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Epistemology (8)  |  Problem (731)  |  Size (62)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Physical (518)  |  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)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Office (71)  |  Pain (144)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  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)

At present we begin to feel impatient, and to wish for a new state of chemical elements. For a time the desire was to add to the metals, now we wish to diminish their number. They increase upon us continually, and threaten to enclose within their ranks the bounds of our fair fields of chemical science. The rocks of the mountain and the soil of the plain, the sands of the sea and the salts that are in it, have given way to the powers we have been able to apply to them, but only to be replaced by metals.
In his 16th Lecture of 1818, in Bence Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 1, 256-257.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bound (120)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Desire (212)  |  Element (322)  |  Feel (371)  |  Field (378)  |  Impatience (13)  |  Increase (225)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mountain (202)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Present (630)  |  Rank (69)  |  Rock (176)  |  Salt (48)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sea (326)  |  Soil (98)  |  State (505)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wish (216)

At present we must confine ourselves to saying that soul is the source of these phenomena and is characterized by them, viz. by the powers of self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and movement.
Aristotle
On the Soul, 413b, II-3. In Jonathan Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (1984), Vol. 1, 658.
Science quotes on:  |  Human Body (34)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Present (630)  |  Self (268)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thinking (425)

At the planet’s very heart lies a solid rocky core, at least five times larger than Earth, seething with the appalling heat generated by the inexorable contraction of the stupendous mass of material pressing down to its centre. For more than four billion years Jupiter’s immense gravitational power has been squeezing the planet slowly, relentlessly, steadily, converting gravitational energy into heat, raising the temperature of that rocky core to thirty thousand degrees, spawning the heat flow that warms the planet from within. That hot, rocky core is the original protoplanet seed from the solar system’s primeval time, the nucleus around which those awesome layers of hydrogen and helium and ammonia, methane, sulphur compounds and water have wrapped themselves.
Ben Bova
Jupiter
Science quotes on:  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Awesome (15)  |  Billion (104)  |  Centre (31)  |  Compound (117)  |  Contraction (18)  |  Convert (22)  |  Core (20)  |  Degree (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Five (16)  |  Flow (89)  |  Generate (16)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heat (180)  |  Helium (11)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inexorable (10)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Large (398)  |  Layer (41)  |  Least (75)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mass (160)  |  Material (366)  |  Methane (9)  |  More (2558)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Original (61)  |  Planet (402)  |  Press (21)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Raise (38)  |  Relentlessly (2)  |  Rocky (3)  |  Seed (97)  |  Seething (3)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solar Systems (5)  |  Solid (119)  |  Spawn (2)  |  Squeeze (7)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Stupendous (13)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  System (545)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thirty (6)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  Wrap (7)  |  Year (963)

Atoms for peace. Man is still the greatest miracle and the greatest problem on earth. [Message tapped out by Sarnoff using a telegraph key in a tabletop circuit demonstrating an RCA atomic battery as a power source.]
The Wisdom of Sarnoff and the World of RCA (1967), 251.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Battery (12)  |  Circuit (29)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Man (2252)  |  Message (53)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Peace (116)  |  Problem (731)  |  Still (614)  |  Telegraph (45)

Becoming serious is a grievous fault in hobbyists. It is an axiom that no hobby should either seek or need rational justification. To wish to do it is reason enough. To find reasons why it is useful or beneficial converts it at once from an avocation into an industry–lowers it at once to the ignominious category of an 'exercise' undertaken for health, power, or profit. Lifting dumbbells is not a hobby. It is a confession of subservience, not an assertion of liberty.
From 'A Man’s Leisure Time' (1920), collected in Luna B. Leopold (ed.) Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold (1953, 1972), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Assertion (35)  |  Avocation (5)  |  Beneficial (16)  |  Category (19)  |  Confession (9)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fault (58)  |  Grievous (4)  |  Health (210)  |  Hobby (14)  |  Ignominious (2)  |  Industry (159)  |  Justification (52)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Lift (57)  |  Profit (56)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Serious (98)  |  Subservience (4)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wish (216)

Before the introduction of the Arabic notation, multiplication was difficult, and the division even of integers called into play the highest mathematical faculties. Probably nothing in the modern world could have more astonished a Greek mathematician than to learn that, under the influence of compulsory education, the whole population of Western Europe, from the highest to the lowest, could perform the operation of division for the largest numbers. This fact would have seemed to him a sheer impossibility. … Our modern power of easy reckoning with decimal fractions is the most miraculous result of a perfect notation.
In Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Arabic (4)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  Call (781)  |  Compulsory (8)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Division (67)  |  Easy (213)  |  Education (423)  |  Europe (50)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Greek (109)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Influence (231)  |  Integer (12)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Largest (39)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Miraculous (11)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern World (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Notation (28)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perform (123)  |  Population (115)  |  Probably (50)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Result (700)  |  Western (45)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Behold the mighty dinosaur,
Famous in prehistoric lore,
Not only for his power and strength
But for his intellectual length.
You will observe by these remains
The creature had two sets of brains—
One in his head (the usual place),
The other at his spinal base.
Thus he could reason 'A priori'
As well as 'A posteriori'.
No problem bothered him a bit
He made both head and tail of it.
So wise was he, so wise and solemn,
Each thought filled just a spinal column.
If one brain found the pressure strong
It passed a few ideas along.
If something slipped his forward mind
'Twas rescued by the one behind.
And if in error he was caught
He had a saving afterthought.
As he thought twice before he spoke
He had no judgment to revoke.
Thus he could think without congestion
Upon both sides of every question.
Oh, gaze upon this model beast
Defunct ten million years at least.
'The Dinosaur: A Poem' (1912). In E. H. Colbert (ed.), The Dinosaur Book (1951), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  A Posteriori (2)  |  A Priori (26)  |  Afterthought (6)  |  Base (120)  |  Beast (58)  |  Behind (139)  |  Both (496)  |  Bother (8)  |  Brain (281)  |  Congestion (2)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Error (339)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Head (87)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Model (106)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Set (400)  |  Side (236)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Solemnity (6)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Spinal Column (2)  |  Spine (9)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Tail (21)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Twice (20)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)  |  Year (963)

Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in determining the symptoms of the later neurosis... This discovery is confirmed by a legend that has come down to us from classical antiquity: a legend whose profound and universal power to move can only be understood if the hypothesis I have put forward in regard to the psychology of children has an equally universal validity. What I have in mind is the legend of King Oedipus and Sophocles' drama which bears his name.
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), In James Strachey (ed.) The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1953), Vol. 4, 260-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Children (201)  |  Classical (49)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Drama (24)  |  Equally (129)  |  Essential (210)  |  Form (976)  |  Forward (104)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Legend (18)  |  Love (328)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Move (223)  |  Name (359)  |  Neurosis (9)  |  Oedipus (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Profound (105)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Regard (312)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understood (155)  |  Universal (198)  |  Validity (50)

Believing, as I do, in the continuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By a necessity engendered and justified by science I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial Life.
'Address Delivered Before The British Association Assembled at Belfast', (19 Aug 1874). Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews (1892), Vol. 2, 191.
Science quotes on:  |  Abrupt (6)  |  Belief (615)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Cease (81)  |  Cessation (13)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Cover (40)  |  Creator (97)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engendering (3)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Eye (440)  |  Hitherto (6)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Justification (52)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Notwithstanding (2)  |  Potency (10)  |  Profess (21)  |  Professing (2)  |  Promise (72)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Stop (89)  |  Supplement (7)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Use (771)  |  Vision (127)

Bertrand, Darboux, and Glaisher have compared Cayley to Euler, alike for his range, his analytical power, and, not least, for his prolific production of new views and fertile theories. There is hardly a subject in the whole of pure mathematics at which he has not worked.
In Proceedings of London Royal Society (1895), 58, 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Joseph Bertrand (6)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Compare (76)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Fertile (30)  |   James Whitbread Lee Glaisher (3)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  New (1273)  |  Production (190)  |  Prolific (5)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Biofuels may be palliative in the short term in terms of greener energy. But in the long term we are going to run out of space to grow food, which is more important than finding alternative ways to power Rolls-Royces and superjets.
From interview with Nick Harding in 'Sir David Attenborough: ‘This awful summer? We've only ourselves to blame…’' The Independent (July 2012). On the website of independent.co.uk online.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Find (1014)  |  Food (213)  |  Grow (247)  |  Important (229)  |  Long Term (4)  |  Rolls-Royce (2)  |  Run Out (2)  |  Space (523)

Books and libraries and the will to use them are among the most important tools our nation has to diffuse knowledge and to develop our powers of creative wisdom.
Statement on the Occasion of National Library Week (16 Apr 1961). In Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961 (1962), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Creative (144)  |  Develop (278)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Importance (299)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Library (53)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  Tool (129)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)

Built up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, together with traces of a few other elements, yet of a complexity of structure that has hitherto resisted all attempts at complete analysis, protoplasm is at once the most enduring and the most easily destroyed of substances; its molecules are constantly breaking down to furnish the power for the manifestations of vital phenomena, and yet, through its remarkable property of assimilation, a power possessed by nothing else upon earth, it constantly builds up its substance anew from the surrounding medium.
In History of the Human Body (1919), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Anew (19)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Build (211)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Enduring (6)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Medium (15)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possess (157)  |  Property (177)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Trace (109)  |  Vital (89)

But as my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position—namely, at the close of the Introduction—the following words: “I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.” This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.
In The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection with additions and corrections from sixth and last English edition (1899), Vol. 2, 293.
Science quotes on:  |  Attribute (65)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Edition (5)  |  Endure (21)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Misrepresentation (5)  |  Modification (57)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Remark (28)  |  Selection (130)  |  Show (353)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Steady (45)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  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)  |  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 if any skillful minister of nature shall apply force to matter, and by design torture and vex it, in order to [effect] its annihilation, it, on the contrary being brought under this necessity, changes and transforms itself into a strange variety of shapes and appearances; for nothing but the power of the Creator can annihilate, or truly destroy it.
As quoted in M.J. Gorton, 'The Weather', Popular Science News (1889), 23, No. 8, 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Annihilate (10)  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Apply (170)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Creator (97)  |  Design (203)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Effect (414)  |  Force (497)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Order (638)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Strange (160)  |  Torture (30)  |  Transform (74)  |  Truly (118)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vex (10)

But the nature of our civilized minds is so detached from the senses, even in the vulgar, by abstractions corresponding to all the abstract terms our languages abound in, and so refined by the art of writing, and as it were spiritualized by the use of numbers, because even the vulgar know how to count and reckon, that it is naturally beyond our power to form the vast image of this mistress called ‘Sympathetic Nature.’
The New Science, bk. 2, para. 378 (1744, trans. 1984).
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Art (680)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Count (107)  |  Detach (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Image (97)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistress (7)  |  Naturally (11)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Refine (8)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sympathetic (10)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

But the Presidence of that mighty Power … its particular Agency and Concern therein: and its Purpose and Design … will more evidently appear, when I shall have proved … That the said Earth, though not indifferently and alike fertil in all parts of it, was yet generally much more fertil than ours is … That its Soil was more luxuriant, and teemed forth its Productions in far greater plenty and abundance than the present Earth does … That when Man was fallen, and had abandoned his primitive Innocence, the Case was much altered: and a far different Scene of Things presented; that generous Vertue, masculine Bravery, and prudent Circumspection which he was before Master of, now deserting him … and a strange imbecility immediately seized and laid hold of him: he became pusillanimous, and was easily ruffled with every little Passion within: supine, and as openly exposed to any Temptation or Assault from without. And now these exuberant Productions of the Earth became a continued Decoy and Snare unto him.
In An Essay Toward A Natural History of the Earth (1695), 84-86.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abundance (26)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Circumspection (5)  |  Concern (239)  |  Design (203)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Generous (17)  |  Greater (288)  |  Imbecility (5)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Innocence (13)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Masculine (4)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Passion (121)  |  Present (630)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Production (190)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scene (36)  |  Soil (98)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

But when you come right down to it, the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and values.
Regarding the atomic bomb project.
From speech at Los Alamos (17 Oct 1945). Quoted in David C. Cassidy, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century (2009), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Control (182)  |  Deal (192)  |  Down (455)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Find (1014)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Job (86)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Organic (161)  |  Possible (560)  |  Project (77)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this;—we can perceive that events are brought about, not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular ease, but by the establishment of general laws.
In Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1833), 356. Charles Darwin placed this quote on the title page of his On the Origin of Species, identified as from Whewell's 'Bridgewater Treatise'.
Science quotes on:  |  Divine (112)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Event (222)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exert (40)  |  General (521)  |  Interposition (2)  |  Law (913)  |  Material (366)  |  Regard (312)  |  World (1850)

But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
Letter (24 Jan 1936). Quoted in Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1981), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Face (214)  |  Feel (371)  |  Humble (54)  |  Involved (90)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modest (19)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Superior (88)  |  Universe (900)

By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Advanced (12)  |  Brain (281)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Effect (414)  |  Free (239)  |  Good (906)  |  Increase (225)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Notation (28)  |  Problem (731)  |  Race (278)  |  Relief (30)  |  Set (400)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Work (1402)

By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For 'totalitarian' is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests. It thus precludes the emergence of an effective opposition against the whole. Not only a specific form of government or party rule makes for totalitarianism, but also a specific system of production and distribution which may well be compatible with a 'pluralism' of parties, newspapers, 'countervailing powers,' etc.
One Dimensional Man (1964), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Base (120)  |  Coordination (11)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Effective (68)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Form (976)  |  Government (116)  |  Industry (159)  |  Interest (416)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Newspaper (39)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Party (19)  |  Pluralism (3)  |  Political (124)  |  Production (190)  |  Rule (307)  |  Society (350)  |  Specific (98)  |  System (545)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Tend (124)  |  Through (846)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

Chemists must unite in order to force upon the reluctant world the power of their discoveries.
Shortly after World War I. Quoted, as a memory of Pope, in Sir William Jackson Pope Memorial Lecture by Leslie H. Lampitt, 'Sir William Jackson Pope: His Influence on Scientific Organisation' Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (31 Jan 1947), 95, No. 4736, 174. Webmaster notes that this is given as a memory, and the wording therefore may not be verbatim.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemist (169)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Force (497)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Reluctant (4)  |  Unite (43)  |  World (1850)

Chymistry. … An art whereby sensible bodies contained in vessels … are so changed, by means of certain instruments, and principally fire, that their several powers and virtues are thereby discovered, with a view to philosophy or medicine.
An antiquated definition, as quoted in Samuel Johnson, entry for 'Chymistry' in Dictionary of the English Language (1785). Also in The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts (1821), 284, wherein a letter writer (only identified as “C”) points out that this definition still appeared in the, then, latest Rev. Mr. Todd’s Edition of Johnson’s Dictionary, and that it showed “very little improvement of scientific words.” The letter included examples of better definitions by Black and by Davy. (See their pages on this website.)
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Contain (68)  |  Definition (238)  |  Discover (571)  |  Fire (203)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Means (587)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Several (33)  |  Vessel (63)  |  View (496)  |  Virtue (117)

Coal … We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization; for coal is a portable climate. … Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comforts bring its industrial power.
In chapter 3, 'Wealth', The Conduct of Life (1860), collected in Emerson’s Complete Works (1892), Vol. 6, 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Basket (8)  |  Black (46)  |  Boat (17)  |  Bringing (10)  |  Call (781)  |  Canada (6)  |  Carrying (7)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Climate (102)  |  Coal (64)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Draw (140)  |  Ear (69)  |  Industry (159)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mile (43)  |  Ounce (9)  |  Portable (4)  |  Rail (5)  |  Secret (216)  |  Ton (25)  |  Two (936)  |  Warm (74)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Whisper (11)  |  Will (2350)

Contingency is rich and fascinating; it embodies an exquisite tension between the power of individuals to modify history and the intelligible limits set by laws of nature. The details of individual and species’s lives are not mere frills, without power to shape the large-scale course of events, but particulars that can alter entire futures, profoundly and forever.
Reprinted from column, 'This View of Life',Natural History magazine, in Eight Little Piggies (1993), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Course (413)  |  Detail (150)  |  Embody (18)  |  Entire (50)  |  Event (222)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Forever (111)  |  Future (467)  |  History (716)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Live (650)  |  Mere (86)  |  Modify (15)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Rich (66)  |  Scale (122)  |  Set (400)  |  Shape (77)  |  Species (435)  |  Tension (24)

Could this have just happened? Was it an accident that a bunch of flotsam and jetsam suddenly started making these orbits of its own accord? I can't believe that. … Some power put all this into orbit and keeps it there.
Reflecting on the orderliness of the whole universe, printed in Reader’s Digest (Jul 1962), 38. As cited in Tiebet Joshua, Bible Versus Science: Which is More Authentic? (2015), Sec. 4.1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Belief (615)  |  Flotsam (3)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Jetsam (2)  |  Making (300)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Start (237)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Suddenly (91)

Cuvier had even in his address & manner the character of a superior Man, much general power & eloquence in conversation & great variety of information on scientific as well as popular subjects. I should say of him that he is the most distinguished man of talents I have ever known on the continent: but I doubt if He be entitled to the appellation of a Man of Genius.
J. Z. Fullmer, 'Davy's Sketches of his Contemporaries', Chymia, 1967, 12, 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Character (259)  |  Continent (79)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Doubt (314)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Information (173)  |  Known (453)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superior (88)  |  Talent (99)  |  Variety (138)

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
In 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' (8 Feb 1996). Published on Electronic Frontier Foundation website. Reproduced in Lawrence Lessig, Code: Version 2.0) (2008), 303.
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Array (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Birth (154)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Coercion (4)  |  Communication (101)  |  Conformity (15)  |  Consist (223)  |  Cyberspace (3)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Enter (145)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Express (192)  |  Fear (212)  |  Force (497)  |  Live (650)  |  Matter (821)  |  Military (45)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Race (278)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Silence (62)  |  Singular (24)  |  Station (30)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Wave (112)  |  Web (17)  |  World (1850)

Dear Sir Walter ... Your account of his seizure grieved us all much. Coleridge had a dangerous attack a few weeks ago; Davy is gone. Surely these are men of power, not to be replaced should they disappear, as one alas has done.
From letter to Samuel Rogers (30 Jul 1830), collected in Peter William Clayden, Rogers and His Contemporaries (1889), Vol. 2, 41. Also Quoted in Raymond Lamont-Brown, Humphry Davy: Life Beyond The Lamp (2004), 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Attack (86)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Surely (101)  |  Week (73)

Despite the dazzling successes of modern technology and the unprecedented power of modern military systems, they suffer from a common and catastrophic fault. While providing us with a bountiful supply of food, with great industrial plants, with high-speed transportation, and with military weapons of unprecedented power, they threaten our very survival.
In Science and Survival (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Common (447)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Despite (7)  |  Fault (58)  |  Food (213)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Industrial (15)  |  Military (45)  |  Modern (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Provide (79)  |  Speed (66)  |  Success (327)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Supply (100)  |  Survival (105)  |  System (545)  |  Technology (281)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Unprecedented (11)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.
As quoted in Jacqueline Trescott, 'Representative Barbara Jordan', Tuesday at Home Supplement,The Courier Journal (27 Oct 1974), 8. As quoted in 'Words of the Week', Jet (23 Jan 1975), 47, No. 18, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Black (46)  |  Brain (281)  |  Call (781)  |  Do (1905)  |  Green (65)

Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.
Spoken by character, Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet (1887), Chap. 5. Collected in Works of Arthur Conan Doyle (1902), Vol. 11, 68-69.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Century (319)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Claim (154)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Influence (231)  |  Long (778)  |  Memory (144)  |  Misty (6)  |  Music (133)  |  Produce (117)  |  Race (278)  |  Remember (189)  |  Say (989)  |  Soul (235)  |  Speech (66)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Vague (50)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

Doctors and Clergymen. A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Clergyman (5)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Healing (28)  |  Influence (231)  |  Physician (284)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Relation (166)

Dr. Bhabha was a visionary. He had excellent command over electronics, physics and he saw the dream of India being a nuclear power. … He was a perfectionist and would leave no point of suspicion while working on any project. He was an inspiration.
Interview in newsletter of the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (Oct 2001), online.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Homi J. Bhabha (2)  |  Command (60)  |  Dream (222)  |  Electronics (21)  |  India (23)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  Perfectionist (3)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Project (77)  |  Saw (160)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Visionary (6)

Dr. Wallace, in his Darwinism, declares that he can find no ground for the existence of pure scientists, especially mathematicians, on the hypothesis of natural selection. If we put aside the fact that great power in theoretical science is correlated with other developments of increasing brain-activity, we may, I think, still account for the existence of pure scientists as Dr. Wallace would himself account for that of worker-bees. Their function may not fit them individually to survive in the struggle for existence, but they are a source of strength and efficiency to the society which produces them.
In Grammar of Science (1911), Part, 1, 221.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Activity (218)  |  Bee (44)  |  Brain (281)  |  Correlate (7)  |  Darwinism (3)  |  Declare (48)  |  Development (441)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Especially (31)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Function (235)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Increase (225)  |  Individually (2)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Other (2233)  |  Produce (117)  |  Pure (299)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Selection (130)  |  Society (350)  |  Source (101)  |  Still (614)  |  Strength (139)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Survive (87)  |  Theoretical Science (4)  |  Think (1122)  |  Alfred Russel Wallace (41)

Electricity is often called wonderful, beautiful; but it is so only in common with the other forces of nature. The beauty of electricity or of any other force is not that the power is mysterious, and unexpected, touching every sense at unawares in turn, but that it is under law, and that the taught intellect can even govern it largely. The human mind is placed above, and not beneath it, and it is in such a point of view that the mental education afforded by science is rendered super-eminent in dignity, in practical application and utility; for by enabling the mind to apply the natural power through law, it conveys the gifts of God to man.
Notes for a Friday Discourse at the Royal Institution (1858).
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Call (781)  |  Common (447)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Education (423)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Force (497)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Govern (66)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Practical (225)  |  Render (96)  |  Sense (785)  |  Through (846)  |  Touching (16)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Utility (52)  |  View (496)  |  Wonderful (155)

ELECTRICITY, n. The power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and good man's career. The memory of Dr. Franklin is justly held in great reverence, particularly in France, where a waxen effigy of him was recently on exhibition, bearing the following touching account of his life and services to science:
Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered.
Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of its economical application to some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved that it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more light than a horse.
The Cynic's Word Book (1906), 87. Also published later as The Devil's Dictionary.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Better (493)  |  Car (75)  |  Career (86)  |  Cause (561)  |  Destined (42)  |  Devour (29)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Exhibition (7)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Horse (78)  |  Humour (116)  |  Illustrious (10)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Island (49)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Service (110)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Strike (72)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touching (16)  |  Unsettled (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Energy is the measure of that which passes from one atom to another in the course of their transformations. A unifying power, then, but also, because the atom appears to become enriched or exhausted in the course of the exchange, the expression of structure.
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:  |  Appear (122)  |  Atom (381)  |  Become (821)  |  Course (413)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Expression (181)  |  Measure (241)  |  Pass (241)  |  Structure (365)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Unify (7)

Thomas Tredgold quote
Engineering … the great sources of power in nature (source)
Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.
(1828) At a meeting of the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Great Britain (29 Dec 1827), by resolution, Honorary Member Thomas Tredgold was asked for a description of what a Civil Engineer is, in order that it could be put in the petition for a charter. (As cited by F.R. Hutton, in 'The Field of the Mechanical Engineer', The Engineering Digest (1908), Vol. 3 , 10.) The wording was repeated in the Charter of the Institution. (Reported in 'Society of Civil Engineers', The Gentleman's Magazine (1828), 143, 628.) The quote is excerpted from the longer definition therein.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Great (1610)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Use (771)

Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and the convenience of people. In its modern form engineering involves people, money, materials, machines, and energy. It is differentiated from science because it is primarily concerned with how to direct to useful and economical ends the natural phenomena which scientists discover and formulate into acceptable theories. Engineering therefore requires above all the creative imagination to innovate useful applications of natural phenomena. It seeks newer, cheaper, better means of using natural sources of energy and materials.
In McGraw Hill, Science and Technology Encyclopedia
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Better (493)  |  Cheaper (6)  |  Concern (239)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Creative (144)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Direct (228)  |  Directing (5)  |  Discover (571)  |  Economical (11)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Form (976)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Innovate (2)  |  Involve (93)  |  Machine (271)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Modern (402)  |  Money (178)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomena (8)  |  Primarily (12)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seek (218)  |  Source (101)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)

Engineers apply the theories and principles of science and mathematics to research and develop economical solutions to practical technical problems. Their work is the link between scientific discoveries and commercial applications. Engineers design products, the machinery to build those products, the factories in which those products are made, and the systems that ensure the quality of the product and efficiency of the workforce and manufacturing process. They design, plan, and supervise the construction of buildings, highways, and transit systems. They develop and implement improved ways to extract, process, and use raw materials, such as petroleum and natural gas. They develop new materials that both improve the performance of products, and make implementing advances in technology possible. They harness the power of the sun, the earth, atoms, and electricity for use in supplying the Nation’s power needs, and create millions of products using power. Their knowledge is applied to improving many things, including the quality of health care, the safety of food products, and the efficient operation of financial systems.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook (2000) as quoted in Charles R. Lord. Guide to Information Sources in Engineering (2000), 5. This definition has been revised and expanded over time in different issues of the Handbook.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Atom (381)  |  Both (496)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Care (203)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Construction (114)  |  Create (245)  |  Design (203)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Economical (11)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Efficient (34)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Extract (40)  |  Factory (20)  |  Finance (4)  |  Food (213)  |  Gas (89)  |  Harness (25)  |  Health (210)  |  Health Care (10)  |  Highway (15)  |  Implement (13)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Million (124)  |  Nation (208)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Gas (2)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Operation (221)  |  Performance (51)  |  Petroleum (8)  |  Plan (122)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Product (166)  |  Quality (139)  |  Raw (28)  |  Research (753)  |  Safety (58)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supervise (2)  |  System (545)  |  Technical (53)  |  Technology (281)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transit (2)  |  Use (771)  |  Using (6)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

Error is often nourished by good sense. … The meaning is, that the powers of the understanding are frequently employed to defend favourite errors; and that a man of sense frequently fortifies himself in his prejudices, or in false opinions which he received without examination, by such arguments as would not have occurred to a fool.
In Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, Critical, Satyrical and Moral (2nd ed., 1757), 9. The meaning is given as a footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Defend (32)  |  Employ (115)  |  Employed (3)  |  Error (339)  |  Examination (102)  |  False (105)  |  Favourite (7)  |  Fool (121)  |  Fortify (4)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Nourished (2)  |  Occur (151)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Receive (117)  |  Sense (785)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

Etna presents us not merely with an image of the power of subterranean heat, but a record also of the vast period of time during which that power has been exerted. A majestic mountain has been produced by volcanic action, yet the time of which the volcanic forms the register, however vast, is found by the geologist to be of inconsiderable amount, even in the modern annals of the earth’s history. In like manner, the Falls of Niagara teach us not merely to appreciate the power of moving water, but furnish us at the same time with data for estimating the enormous lapse of ages during which that force has operated. A deep and long ravine has been excavated, and the river has required ages to accomplish the task, yet the same region affords evidence that the sum of these ages is as nothing, and as the work of yesterday, when compared to the antecedent periods, of which there are monuments in the same district.
Travels in North America (1845), Vol. 1, 28-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Age (509)  |  Amount (153)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Data (162)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Etna (5)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exert (40)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Heat (180)  |  History (716)  |  Image (97)  |  Lava (12)  |  Long (778)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern (402)  |  Monument (45)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Period (200)  |  Present (630)  |  Produced (187)  |  Ravine (5)  |  Record (161)  |  Register (22)  |  Required (108)  |  River (140)  |  Sum (103)  |  Task (152)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vast (188)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yesterday (37)

Even bigger machines, entailing even bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.
In Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973).
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Big (55)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Demand (131)  |  Denial (20)  |  Do (1905)  |  Economic (84)  |  Entail (4)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exert (40)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Machine (271)  |  New (1273)  |  Orientation (4)  |  Progress (492)  |  Represent (157)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Technology (281)  |  Violence (37)  |  Wisdom (235)

Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side. Dr. Johnson has said that the habit of looking at the best side of a thing is worth more to a man than a thousand pounds a year. And we possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the will as to direct the thoughts upon objects calculated to yield happiness and improvement rather than their opposites.
In Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859, 1861), 405-406.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Best (467)  |  Bright (81)  |  Dark (145)  |  Direct (228)  |  Extent (142)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habit (174)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Samuel Johnson (51)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Object (438)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Possess (157)  |  Side (236)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)

Every complete set of chromosomes contains the full code; so there are, as a rule, two copies of the latter in the fertilized egg cell, which forms the earliest stage of the future individual. In calling the structure of the chromosome fibres a code-script we mean that the all-penetrating mind, once conceived by Laplace, to which every causal connection lay immediately open, could tell from their structure whether the egg would develop, under suitable conditions, into a black cock or into a speckled hen, into a fly or a maize plant, a rhododendron, a beetle, a mouse or a woman. To which we may add, that the appearances of the egg cells are very often remarkably similar; and even when they are not, as in the case of the comparatively gigantic eggs of birds and reptiles, the difference is not so much in the relevant structures as in the nutritive material which in these cases is added for obvious reasons.
But the term code-script is, of course, too narrow. The chromosome structures are at the same time instrumental in bringing about the development they foreshadow. They are law-code and executive power?or, to use another simile, they are architect's plan and builder’s craft-in one.
In What is Life? : The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell (1944), 20-21.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Architect (32)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Bird (163)  |  Builder (16)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Cock (6)  |  Code (31)  |  Complete (209)  |  Condition (362)  |  Connection (171)  |  Copy (34)  |  Course (413)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Egg (71)  |  Executive (3)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foreshadow (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Hen (9)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instrumental (5)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Law (913)  |  Maize (4)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Open (277)  |  Plan (122)  |  Plant (320)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Rule (307)  |  Set (400)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Simile (8)  |  Speckled (3)  |  Stage (152)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tell (344)  |  Term (357)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Woman (160)

Every creature has its own food, and an appropriate alchemist with the task of dividing it ... The alchemist takes the food and changes it into a tincture which he sends through the body to become blood and flesh. This alchemist dwells in the stomach where he cooks and works. The man eats a piece of meat, in which is both bad and good. When the meat reaches the stomach, there is the alchemist who divides it. What does not belong to health he casts away to a special place, and sends the good wherever it is needed. That is the Creator's decree... That is the virtue and power of the alchemist in man.
Volumen Medicinae Paramirum (c. 1520), in Paracelsus: Essential Readings, edited by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1990), 50-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Bad (185)  |  Become (821)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Cast (69)  |  Change (639)  |  Cook (20)  |  Creator (97)  |  Creature (242)  |  Decree (9)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Divide (77)  |  Division (67)  |  Eat (108)  |  Excretion (7)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Food (213)  |  Good (906)  |  Health (210)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meat (19)  |  Special (188)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Task (152)  |  Through (846)  |  Tincture (5)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Work (1402)

Every form of life can be produced by physical forces in one of two ways: either by coming into being out of formless matter, or by the modification of an already existing form by a continued process of shaping. In the latter case the cause of this modification may lie either in the influence of a dissimilar male generative matter upon the female germ, or in the influence of other powers which operate only after procreation.
From Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, The Biology or Philosophy of Animate Nature, as quoted in translation of Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel's 8th German edition with E. Ray Lankester (ed.), The History of Creation, or, the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes (1892), 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Coming (114)  |  Continued (2)  |  Dissimilar (6)  |  Existing (10)  |  Female (50)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Formless (4)  |  Generative (2)  |  Germ (54)  |  Influence (231)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Male (26)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modification (57)  |  Operate (19)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Process (439)  |  Procreation (4)  |  Produced (187)  |  Shaping (2)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

Every great advance of science opens our eyes to facts which we had failed before to observe, and makes new demands on our powers of interpretation.
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Demand (131)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Great (1610)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  New (1273)  |  Observe (179)  |  Open (277)

Every well established truth is an addition to the sum of human power, and though it may not find an immediate application to the economy of every day life, we may safely commit it to the stream of time, in the confident anticipation that the world will not fail to realize its beneficial results.
In 'Report of the Secretary', Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1856 (1857), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Anticipation (18)  |  Application (257)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Commit (43)  |  Confident (25)  |  Economy (59)  |  Fail (191)  |  Find (1014)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Life (1870)  |  Realize (157)  |  Result (700)  |  Stream (83)  |  Sum (103)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Everybody praises the incomparable power of the mathematical method, but so is everybody aware of its incomparable unpopularity.
In Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, Bd. 13, 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Aware (36)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Incomparable (14)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Praise (28)  |  Unpopular (4)

Everything in nature contains all the powers of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 94:24.
Science quotes on:  |  Everything (489)  |  Nature (2017)

Everything material which is the subject of knowledge has number, order, or position; and these are her first outlines for a sketch of the universe. If our feeble hands cannot follow out the details, still her part has been drawn with an unerring pen, and her work cannot be gainsaid. So wide is the range of mathematical sciences, so indefinitely may it extend beyond our actual powers of manipulation that at some moments we are inclined to fall down with even more than reverence before her majestic presence. But so strictly limited are her promises and powers, about so much that we might wish to know does she offer no information whatever, that at other moments we are fain to call her results but a vain thing, and to reject them as a stone where we had asked for bread. If one aspect of the subject encourages our hopes, so does the other tend to chasten our desires, and he is perhaps the wisest, and in the long run the happiest, among his fellows, who has learned not only this science, but also the larger lesson which it directly teaches, namely, to temper our aspirations to that which is possible, to moderate our desires to that which is attainable, to restrict our hopes to that of which accomplishment, if not immediately practicable, is at least distinctly within the range of conception.
From Presidential Address (Aug 1878) to the British Association, Dublin, published in the Report of the 48th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1878), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Actual (118)  |  Ask (420)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attainable (3)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bread (42)  |  Call (781)  |  Chasten (2)  |  Conception (160)  |  Desire (212)  |  Detail (150)  |  Directly (25)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fall (243)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Fellow (88)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hand (149)  |  Happy (108)  |  Hope (321)  |  Immediately (115)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Information (173)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Least (75)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Material (366)  |  Moderate (6)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Namely (11)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Number (710)  |  Offer (142)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outline (13)  |  Part (235)  |  Pen (21)  |  Position (83)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practicable (2)  |  Presence (63)  |  Promise (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Reject (67)  |  Restrict (13)  |  Result (700)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Sketch (8)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Temper (12)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unerring (4)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vain (86)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wish (216)  |  Work (1402)

Faced with the admitted difficulty of managing the creative process, we are doubling our efforts to do so. Is this because science has failed to deliver, having given us nothing more than nuclear power, penicillin, space travel, genetic engineering, transistors, and superconductors? Or is it because governments everywhere regard as a reproach activities they cannot advantageously control? They felt that way about the marketplace for goods, but trillions of wasted dollars later, they have come to recognize the efficiency of this self-regulating system. Not so, however, with the marketplace for ideas.
Quoted in Martin Moskovits (ed.), Science and Society, the John C. Polanyi Nobel Lareates Lectures (1995), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Control (182)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Effort (243)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Fail (191)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetic Engineering (16)  |  Good (906)  |  Government (116)  |  Idea (881)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  Penicillin (18)  |  Process (439)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Regard (312)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Regulating (3)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Travel (23)  |  System (545)  |  Transistor (6)  |  Travel (125)  |  Way (1214)

Thomas Robert Malthus quote Famine … the most dreadful resource of nature.
colorization © todayinsci (Terms of Use) (source)

Please respect the colorization artist’s wishes and do not copy this image for ONLINE use anywhere else.

Thank you.

For offline use, click Terms of Use tab on top menu.

Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow, levels the population with the food of the world.
In An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), 140, and in new enlarged edition (1803), 350.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Active (80)  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Army (35)  |  Array (5)  |  Blow (45)  |  Death (406)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  Extermination (14)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Famine (18)  |  Finish (62)  |  Food (213)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Minister (10)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Plague (42)  |  Population (115)  |  Precursor (5)  |  Premature (22)  |  Production (190)  |  Race (278)  |  Resource (74)  |  Season (47)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Stalk (6)  |  Still (614)  |  Subsistence (9)  |  Success (327)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Terrific (4)  |  Themself (4)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Vice (42)  |  War (233)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Far from becoming discouraged, the philosopher should applaud nature, even when she appears miserly of herself or overly mysterious, and should feel pleased that as he lifts one part of her veil, she allows him to glimpse an immense number of other objects, all worthy of investigation. For what we already know should allow us to judge of what we will be able to know; the human mind has no frontiers, it extends proportionately as the universe displays itself; man, then, can and must attempt all, and he needs only time in order to know all. By multiplying his observations, he could even see and foresee all phenomena, all of nature's occurrences, with as much truth and certainty as if he were deducing them directly from causes. And what more excusable or even more noble enthusiasm could there be than that of believing man capable of recognizing all the powers, and discovering through his investigations all the secrets, of nature!
'Des Mulets', Oeuvres Philosophiques, ed. Jean Piveteau (1954), 414. Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, ed. Keith R. Benson and trans. Robert Ellrich (1997), 458.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Display (59)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Extend (129)  |  Feel (371)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Immense (89)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Judge (114)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lift (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Veil (27)  |  Will (2350)

Few will deny that even in the first scientific instruction in mathematics the most rigorous method is to be given preference over all others. Especially will every teacher prefer a consistent proof to one which is based on fallacies or proceeds in a vicious circle, indeed it will be morally impossible for the teacher to present a proof of the latter kind consciously and thus in a sense deceive his pupils. Notwithstanding these objectionable so-called proofs, so far as the foundation and the development of the system is concerned, predominate in our textbooks to the present time. Perhaps it will be answered, that rigorous proof is found too difficult for the pupil’s power of comprehension. Should this be anywhere the case,—which would only indicate some defect in the plan or treatment of the whole,—the only remedy would be to merely state the theorem in a historic way, and forego a proof with the frank confession that no proof has been found which could be comprehended by the pupil; a remedy which is ever doubtful and should only be applied in the case of extreme necessity. But this remedy is to be preferred to a proof which is no proof, and is therefore either wholly unintelligible to the pupil, or deceives him with an appearance of knowledge which opens the door to all superficiality and lack of scientific method.
In 'Stücke aus dem Lehrbuche der Arithmetik', Werke, Bd. 2 (1904), 296.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Base (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Case (102)  |  Circle (117)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Concern (239)  |  Confession (9)  |  Consciously (6)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Defect (31)  |  Deny (71)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Door (94)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Especially (31)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Forego (4)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Frank (4)  |  Give (208)  |  Historic (7)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Latter (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Morally (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Preference (28)  |  Present (630)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sense (785)  |  So-Called (71)  |  State (505)  |  Superficiality (4)  |  System (545)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Vicious Circle (4)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)

First Law
In every animal which has not passed the limit of its development, a more frequent and continuous use of any organ gradually strengthens, develops and enlarges that organ, and gives it a power proportional to the length of time it has been so used; while the permanent disuse of any organ imperceptibly weakens and deteriorates it, and progressively diminishes its functional capacity, until it finally disappears.
Philosophie Zoologique (1809), Vol. 1, 235, trans. Hugh Elliot (1914), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  More (2558)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pass (241)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)

First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the globe.... Here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it! It only serves to turn a few mills, blow a few vessels across the ocean, and a few trivial ends besides. What a poor compliment do we pay to our indefatigable and energetic servant!
In 'Paradise (To Be) Regained', Democratic Review (Nov 1848). Collected in A Yankee in Canada: with Anti-slavery and Reform Papers (1866), 188-89.
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exert (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Mill (16)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Poor (139)  |  Servant (40)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)

Fleets are not confined to the ocean, but now sail over the land. … All the power of the British Navy has not been able to prevent Zeppelins from reaching England and attacking London, the very heart of the British Empire. Navies do not protect against aerial attack. … Heavier-than-air flying machines of the aeroplane type have crossed right over the heads of armies, of million of men, armed with the most modern weapons of destruction, and have raided places in the rear. Armies do not protect against aerial war.
In 'Preparedness for Aerial Defense', Addresses Before the Eleventh Annual Convention of the Navy League of the United States, Washington, D.C., April 10-13, 1916 (1916), 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Against (332)  |  Air (366)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Arm (82)  |  Army (35)  |  Attack (86)  |  British (42)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Do (1905)  |  England (43)  |  Fleet (4)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Heart (243)  |  London (15)  |  Machine (271)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Navy (10)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Raid (5)  |  Right (473)  |  Sail (37)  |  Type (171)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Zeppelin (4)

Food is at present obtained almost entirely from the energy of the sunlight. The radiation from the sun produces from the carbonic acid in the air more or less complicated carbon compounds which serve us in plants and vegetables. We use the latent chemical energy of these to keep our bodies warm, we convert it into muscular effort. We employ it in the complicated process of digestion to repair and replace the wasted cells of our bodies. … If the gigantic sources of power become available, food would be produced without recourse to sunlight. Vast cellars, in which artificial radiation is generated, may replace the cornfields and potato patches of the world.
From 'Fifty Years Hence', Strand Magazine (Dec 1931). Reprinted in Popular Mechanics (Mar 1932), 57, No. 3, 396-397.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Air (366)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Body (557)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbonic Acid (4)  |  Cell (146)  |  Cellar (4)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Energy (3)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Compound (117)  |  Convert (22)  |  Corn (20)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Effort (243)  |  Employ (115)  |  Energy (373)  |  Field (378)  |  Food (213)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Latent (13)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Muscular (2)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Patch (9)  |  Plant (320)  |  Potato (11)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Repair (11)  |  Replace (32)  |  Source (101)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wasted (2)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Order (638)  |  Peace (116)  |  Sea (326)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speed (66)  |  Stand (284)  |  Truly (118)  |  Want (504)  |  War (233)

For just as musical instruments are brought to perfection of clearness in the sound of their strings by means of bronze plates or horn sounding boards, so the ancients devised methods of increasing the power of the voice in theaters through the application of the science of harmony.
Vitruvius
In Vitruvius Pollio and Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), 'Book V: Chapter III', Vitruvius, the Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 139. From the original Latin, “Ergo veteres Architecti, naturae vestigia persecuti, indagationibus vocis scandentes theatrorum perfecerunt gradationes: & quaesiuerunt per canonicam mathematicorum,& musicam rationem, ut quaecunq; vox effet in scena, clarior & suauior ad spectatorum perueniret aures. Uti enim organa in aeneis laminis, aut corneis, diesi ad chordarum sonituum claritatem perficiuntur: sic theatrorum, per harmonicen ad augendam vocem, ratiocinationes ab antiquis sunt constitutae.” In De Architectura libri decem (1552), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Acoustics (4)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Application (257)  |  Board (13)  |  Bronze (5)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Devise (16)  |  Harmonic (4)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Horn (18)  |  Increase (225)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Music (133)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Plate (7)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Sound (187)  |  String (22)  |  Through (846)  |  Voice (54)

For man being the minister and interpreter of nature, acts and understands so far as he has observed of the order, the works and mind of nature, and can proceed no further; for no power is able to loose or break the chain of causes, nor is nature to be conquered but by submission: whence those twin intentions, human knowledge and human power, are really coincident; and the greatest hindrance to works is the ignorance of causes.
In The Great lnstauration.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Being (1276)  |  Break (109)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chain (51)  |  Coincident (2)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hindrance (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Intention (46)  |  Interpreter (8)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Loose (14)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minister (10)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Order (638)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Submission (4)  |  Twin (16)  |  Understand (648)  |  Work (1402)

For nearly twelve years I travelled and lived mostly among uncivilised or completely savage races, and I became convinced that they all possessed good qualities, some of them in a very remarkable degree, and that in all the great characteristics of humanity they are wonderfully like ourselves. Some, indeed, among the brown Polynesians especially, are declared by numerous independent and unprejudiced observers, to be physically, mentally, and intellectually our equals, if not our superiors; and it has always seemed to me one of the disgraces of our civilisation that these fine people have not in a single case been protected from contamination by the vices and follies of our more degraded classes, and allowed to develope their own social and political organislll under the advice of some of our best and wisest men and the protection of our world-wide power. That would have been indeed a worthy trophy of our civilisation. What we have actually done, and left undone, resulting in the degradation and lingering extermination of so fine a people, is one of the most pathetic of its tragedies.
In 'The Native Problem in South Africa and Elsewhere', Independent Review (1906), 11, 182.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Best (467)  |  Brown (23)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Completely (137)  |  Contamination (4)  |  Declared (24)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Degree (277)  |  Development (441)  |  Disgrace (12)  |  Extermination (14)  |  Folly (44)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intellect (251)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Observer (48)  |  Organism (231)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  People (1031)  |  Political (124)  |  Polynesian (2)  |  Possess (157)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Race (278)  |  Savage (33)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Superior (88)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Trophy (3)  |  Uncivilised (2)  |  Vice (42)  |  Wide (97)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.
Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and on Some of its Causes (1830), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Bless (25)  |  Blessed (20)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Invention (400)  |  Person (366)  |  Principle (530)  |  Will (2350)

For the educated, the authority of science rested on the strictness of its method; for the mass, it rested on its powers of explanation.
In Science: The Glorious Entertainment (1964).
Science quotes on:  |  Authority (99)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Mass (160)  |  Method (531)  |  Rest (287)

For the religious, passivism [i.e., objects are obedient to the laws of nature] provides a clear role of God as the author of the laws of nature. If the laws of nature are God’s commands for an essentially passive world…, God also has the power to suspend the laws of nature, and so perform miracles.
In The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism (2002), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Clear (111)  |  Command (60)  |  God (776)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Obedient (9)  |  Object (438)  |  Passive (8)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Role (86)  |  Suspend (11)  |  World (1850)

For the same energy output as from coal or oil, methane combustion releases only half as much carbon dioxide. This implies that powering a nation entirely by gas reduces emissions of carbon dioxide by half. … The problem with [production leaks and other escapes of] … methane is that this substance is twenty-four times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Coal (64)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Emission (20)  |  Energy (373)  |  Escape (85)  |  Gas (89)  |  Greenhouse Gas (4)  |  Half (63)  |  Imply (20)  |  Leak (4)  |  Methane (9)  |  Nation (208)  |  Oil (67)  |  Output (12)  |  Potent (15)  |  Problem (731)  |  Production (190)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Release (31)

For, every time a certain portion is destroyed, be it of the brain or of the spinal cord, a function is compelled to cease suddenly, and before the time known beforehand when it would stop naturally, it is certain that this function depends upon the area destroyed. It is in this way that I have recognized that the prime motive power of respiration has its seat in that part of the medulla oblongata that gives rise to the nerves of the eighth pair [vagi]; and it is by this method that up to a certain point it will be possible to discover the use of certain parts of the brain.
Expériences sur le Principe de la Vie, Notamment sur celui des Mouvements du Coeur, et sur le Siege de ce Principe (1812), 148-149. Translated in Edwin Clarke and L. S. Jacyna, Nineteenth Century Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts (1987), 247.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Cease (81)  |  Certain (557)  |  Depend (238)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Discover (571)  |  Function (235)  |  Known (453)  |  Medulla Oblongata (2)  |  Method (531)  |  Motive (62)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Point (584)  |  Portion (86)  |  Possible (560)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Rise (169)  |  Spinal Cord (5)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Forty years ago the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead thought it self-evident that you would get a good government if you took power out of the hands of the acquisitive and gave it to the learned and the cultivated. At present, a child in kindergarten knows better than that.
In Before the Sabbath (1979), 40-41.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisitive (2)  |  Better (493)  |  Child (333)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Evident (92)  |  Forty (4)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Government (116)  |  Hand (149)  |  Kindergarten (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Present (630)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Thought (995)  |  Alfred North Whitehead (140)  |  Year (963)

Frequently, I have been asked if an experiment I have planned is pure or applied science; to me it is more important to know if the experiment will yield new and probably enduring knowledge about nature. If it is likely to yield such knowledge, it is, in my opinion, good fundamental research; and this is more important than whether the motivation is purely aesthetic satisfaction on the part of the experimenter on the one hand or the improvement of the stability of a high-power transistor on the other.
Quoted in Richard R. Nelson, 'The Link Between Science and Invention: The Case of the Transistor,' The Rate and Direction of the Inventive Activity (1962). In Daniel S. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (1999), 32, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Enduring (6)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Importance (299)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Likelihood (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Motivation (28)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Purely (111)  |  Research (753)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Stability (28)  |  Transistor (6)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yield (86)

From religion comes a man's purpose; from science, his power to achieve it. Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed to one another. They are: in the sense that the thumb and fingers of my hands are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped.
In Sir Kerr Grant, The Life and Work of Sir William Bragg (1952), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Ask (420)  |  Finger (48)  |  Hand (149)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Opposition (49)  |  People (1031)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thumb (18)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Purity (15)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Renew (20)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reservoir (9)  |  State (505)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Transient (13)  |  Universal (198)

From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Concluding paragraph in The Origin of Species (1859), 490. In the second edition, Darwin changed “breathed” to “breathed by the Creator”.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Breath (61)  |  Capable (174)  |  Death (406)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Famine (18)  |  Follow (389)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Law Of Gravity (16)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Planet (402)  |  Production (190)  |  Simple (426)  |  View (496)  |  View Of Life (7)  |  War Of Nature (2)  |  Wonderful (155)

From thus meditating on the great similarity of the structure of the warm-blooded animals, and at the same time of the great changes they undergo both before and after their nativity; and by considering in how minute a portion of time many of the changes of animals above described have been produced; would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!
Zoonomia, Or, The Laws of Organic Life, in three parts (1803), Vol. 1, 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Association (49)  |  Attend (67)  |  Blood (144)  |  Bold (22)  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Direct (228)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Filament (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mankind (15)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Living (492)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Minute (129)  |  New (1273)  |  Portion (86)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Produced (187)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Small (489)  |  Structure (365)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volition (3)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warm-Blooded (3)  |  World (1850)

Further, it will not be amiss to distinguish the three kinds and, as it were, grades of ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their own power in their native country, a vulgar and degenerate kind. The second is of those who labor to extend the power and dominion of their country among men. This certainly has more dignity, though not less covetousness. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition (if ambition it can be called) is without doubt both a more wholesome and a more noble thing than the other two. Now the empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 129. 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, 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Art (680)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Command (60)  |  Country (269)  |  Depend (238)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Extend (129)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Kind (564)  |  Labor (200)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  More (2558)  |  Native (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Other (2233)  |  Race (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Wholesome (12)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)

Gases are distinguished from other forms of matter, not only by their power of indefinite expansion so as to fill any vessel, however large, and by the great effect heat has in dilating them, but by the uniformity and simplicity of the laws which regulate these changes.
Theory of Heat (1904), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Effect (414)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Form (976)  |  Gas (89)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heat (180)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Other (2233)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Vessel (63)

Gauss was not the son of a mathematician; Handel’s father was a surgeon, of whose musical powers nothing is known; Titian was the son and also the nephew of a lawyer, while he and his brother, Francesco Vecellio, were the first painters in a family which produced a succession of seven other artists with diminishing talents. These facts do not, however, prove that the condition of the nerve-tracts and centres of the brain, which determine the specific talent, appeared for the first time in these men: the appropriate condition surely existed previously in their parents, although it did not achieve expression. They prove, as it seems to me, that a high degree of endowment in a special direction, which we call talent, cannot have arisen from the experience of previous generations, that is, by the exercise of the brain in the same specific direction.
In 'On Heredity', Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems (1889), Vol. 1, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Appear (122)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Artist (97)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brother (47)  |  Call (781)  |  Centre (31)  |  Condition (362)  |  Degree (277)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Direction (185)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endowment (16)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Family (101)  |  Father (113)  |  First (1302)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Generation (256)  |  High (370)  |  Known (453)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Music (133)  |  Nephew (2)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painter (30)  |  Parent (80)  |  Previous (17)  |  Produced (187)  |  Prove (261)  |  Son (25)  |  Special (188)  |  Specific (98)  |  Succession (80)  |  Surely (101)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Talent (99)  |  Time (1911)  |  Titian (2)

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are put of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.
From 'A Discourse Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of Prizes' (10 Dec 1774), in Seven Discourses Delivered in the Royal Academy (1778), 202-203.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Art (680)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Genius (301)  |  Industry (159)  |  Precept (10)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rule (307)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)

Genius itself has been analyzed by the shrewdest observers into a higher capacity of attention. “Genius,” says Helvetius … “is nothing but a continued attention,” (une attention suivie). “Genius,” says Buffon, “is only a protracted patience,” (une longue patience). “In the exact sciences, at least,” says Cuvier, “it is the patience of a sound intellect, when invincible, which truly constitutes genius.” And Chesterfield has also observed, that “the power of applying an attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of a superior genius.”
In Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1860), Vol. 1, 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Comte Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (37)  |  Capacity (105)  |  The Earl of Chesterfield (4)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Baron Georges Cuvier (34)  |  Genius (301)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Invincible (6)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observed (149)  |  Patience (58)  |  Protracted (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Steady (45)  |  Superior (88)  |  Truly (118)

Genuine science, of course, is neutral. But its practical effects, when harnessed to the appetites of the market, are something less than neutral. Heartbeats are human, but when harnessed to a public-address system, they can be terrifying. Ordinary human appetites for comfort, prestige, or power have in history been troublesome enough, but when they are given exaggerated expression by means of applied science they promise swift destruction.
In The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1967), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exaggerate (7)  |  Expression (181)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Harness (25)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Market (23)  |  Means (587)  |  Neutral (15)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Promise (72)  |  Swift (16)  |  System (545)  |  Terrify (12)  |  Trouble (117)

Geology has shared the fate of other infant sciences, in being for a while considered hostile to revealed religion; so like them, when fully understood, it will be found a potent and consistent auxiliary to it, exalting our conviction of the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of the Creator.
Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1836), Vol. 1, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Being (1276)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Creator (97)  |  Fate (76)  |  Geology (240)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Infant (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Potent (15)  |  Religion (369)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Understood (155)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)

Geology holds the keys of one of the kingdoms of nature; and it cannot be said that a science which extends our Knowledge, and by consequence our Power, over a third part of nature, holds a low place among intellectual employments.
Vindiciae Geologicae (1820),7.
Science quotes on:  |  Consequence (220)  |  Employment (34)  |  Extend (129)  |  Geology (240)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Low (86)  |  Nature (2017)

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  119-120.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Author (175)  |  Bird (163)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Degree (277)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Goose (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humour (116)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occult (9)  |  Paper (192)  |  Person (366)  |  Process (439)  |  Result (700)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Various (205)  |  Writing (192)

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
In 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' (8 Feb 1996). Published on Electronic Frontier Foundation website. Reproduced in Lawrence Lessig, Code: Version 2.0) (2008), 303.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Border (10)  |  Build (211)  |  Collective (24)  |  Consent (14)  |  Construction (114)  |  Cyberspace (3)  |  Derive (70)  |  Do (1905)  |  Govern (66)  |  Government (116)  |  Grow (247)  |  Invite (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lie (370)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Project (77)  |  Public (100)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  World (1850)

Gradually, … the aspect of science as knowledge is being thrust into the background by the aspect of science as the power of manipulating nature. It is because science gives us the power of manipulating nature that it has more social importance than art. Science as the pursuit of truth is the equal, but not the superior, of art. Science as a technique, though it may have little intrinsic value, has a practical importance to which art cannot aspire.
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), xxiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Background (44)  |  Being (1276)  |  Equal (88)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Importance (299)  |  Intrinsic (18)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Manipulate (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Practical (225)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Social (261)  |  Superior (88)  |  Technique (84)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thrust (13)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)

Great is the power of steady misrepresentation - but the history of science shows how, fortunately, this power does not endure long.
Origin of Species (1878), 421.
Science quotes on:  |  Endure (21)  |  Error (339)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Long (778)  |  Misrepresentation (5)  |  Show (353)  |  Steady (45)

Heart and Brain are the two lords of life. In the metaphors of ordinary speech and in the stricter language of science, we use these terms to indicate two central powers, from which all motives radiate, to which all influences converge.
From 'The Principles of Success in Literature', The Fortnightly (1865), 1, 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Central (81)  |  Converge (10)  |  Convergence (4)  |  Heart (243)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Influence (231)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lord (97)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Motive (62)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Speech (66)  |  Strictness (2)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)

Heat energy of uniform temperature [is] the ultimate fate of all energy. The power of sunlight and coal, electric power, water power, winds and tides do the work of the world, and in the end all unite to hasten the merry molecular dance.
Matter and Energy (1911), 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Coal (64)  |  Dance (35)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Fate (76)  |  Haste (6)  |  Hasten (13)  |  Heat (180)  |  Merry (3)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Solar Power (10)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Tidal Power (4)  |  Tide (37)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Uniform (20)  |  Unite (43)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Power (6)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Heat is a universal solvent, melting out of things their power of resistance, and sucking away and removing their natural strength with its fiery exhalations so that they grow soft, and hence weak, under its glow.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 4, Sec. 3. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Exhalation (2)  |  Fire (203)  |  Glow (15)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Melt (16)  |  Natural (810)  |  Remove (50)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Soft (30)  |  Solvent (7)  |  Strength (139)  |  Suck (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Universal (198)  |  Weak (73)

Her [Nettie Stevens] single-mindedness and devotion, combined with keen powers of observation; her thoughtfulness and patience, united to a well-balanced judgment, account, in part, for her remarkable accomplishment.
In obituary, 'The Scientific Work of Miss N.M. Steves', Science (11 Oct 1912), 36, No. 928, 470.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Account (195)  |  Combine (58)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Keen (10)  |  Observation (593)  |  Patience (58)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Single (365)  |  Nettie Maria Stevens (4)  |  United (15)  |  Well-Balanced (2)

Here is the element or power of conduct, of intellect and knowledge, of beauty, and of social life and manners, and all needful to build up a complete human life. … We have instincts responding to them all, and requiring them all, and we are perfectly civilized only when all these instincts of our nature—all these elements in our civilization have been adequately recognized and satisfied.
Collected in Tryon Edwards (ed.), A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors Both Ancient and Modern (1891), 75.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Build (211)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Element (322)  |  Human (1512)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Manner (62)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Require (229)  |  Respond (14)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Life (8)  |  Sociology (46)

Hope is the companion of power and the mother of success, for those of us who hope strongest have within us the gift of miracles.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Companion (22)  |  Gift (105)  |  Hope (321)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Mother (116)  |  Strong (182)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Success (327)

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 3. 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, 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Command (60)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Effect (414)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obey (46)  |  Operation (221)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rule (307)

I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature, and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon: it is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter; we may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age), and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh! that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement; that men would cease to be wolves to one another; and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity!
Letter to Dr Priestley, 8 Feb 1780. In Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1845), Vol. 2, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Antediluvian (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Disease (340)  |  Easy (213)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Progress (492)  |  Sake (61)  |  Soon (187)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Transport (31)  |  True Science (25)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.
In Icarus, or the Future of Science (1924), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Compel (31)  |  Dominant (26)  |  Fear (212)  |  Group (83)  |  Happy (108)  |  Promote (32)  |  Will (2350)

I am selling what the whole world wants: power.
In a letter to Catherine the Great of Russia offering steam engines for sale, in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations by Alan L. Mackay (1991).
Science quotes on:  |  Selling (6)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Novel (35)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  School (227)  |  Strange (160)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

I believe myself to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted to make me pre-eminently a discoverer of the hidden realities of nature… the belief has been forced upon me…
Firstly: Owing to some peculiarity in my nervous system, I have perceptions of some things, which no one else has… and intuitive perception of… things hidden from eyes, ears, & ordinary senses…
Secondly: my sense reasoning faculties;
Thirdly: my concentration faculty, by which I mean the power not only of throwing my whole energy & existence into whatever I choose, but also of bringing to bear on anyone subject or idea, a vast apparatus from all sorts of apparently irrelevant & extraneous sources…
Well, here I have written what most people would call a remarkably mad letter; & yet certainly one of the most logical, sober-minded, cool, pieces of composition, (I believe), that I ever framed.
Lovelace Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, 42, folio 12 (6 Feb 1841). As quoted and cited in Dorothy Stein (ed.), 'This First Child of Mine', Ada: A Life and a Legacy (1985), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Bear (162)  |  Belief (615)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Choose (116)  |  Combination (150)  |  Composition (86)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Ear (69)  |  Energy (373)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extraneous (6)  |  Eye (440)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Letter (117)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mad (54)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Owing (39)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  People (1031)  |  Perception (97)  |  Possess (157)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Singular (24)  |  Subject (543)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throwing (17)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

I can assure you, reader, that in a very few hours, even during the first day, you will learn more natural philosophy about things contained in this book, than you could learn in fifty years by reading the theories and opinions of the ancient philosophers. Enemies of science will scoff at the astrologers: saying, where is the ladder on which they have climbed to heaven, to know the foundation of the stars? But in this respect I am exempt from such scoffing; for in proving my written reason, I satisfy sight, hearing, and touch: for this reason, defamers will have no power over me: as you will see when you come to see me in my little Academy.
The Admirable Discourses (1580), trans. Aurele La Rocque (1957), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Assurance (17)  |  Astrologer (10)  |  Book (413)  |  Climb (39)  |  Contain (68)  |  Day (43)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Exemption (3)  |  Fifty (17)  |  First (1302)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hour (192)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Ladder (18)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reading (136)  |  Reason (766)  |  Respect (212)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Scoff (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

I cannot find anything showing early aptitude for acquiring languages; but that he [Clifford] had it and was fond of exercising it in later life is certain. One practical reason for it was the desire of being able to read mathematical papers in foreign journals; but this would not account for his taking up Spanish, of which he acquired a competent knowledge in the course of a tour to the Pyrenees. When he was at Algiers in 1876 he began Arabic, and made progress enough to follow in a general way a course of lessons given in that language. He read modern Greek fluently, and at one time he was furious about Sanskrit. He even spent some time on hieroglyphics. A new language is a riddle before it is conquered, a power in the hand afterwards: to Clifford every riddle was a challenge, and every chance of new power a divine opportunity to be seized. Hence he was likewise interested in the various modes of conveying and expressing language invented for special purposes, such as the Morse alphabet and shorthand. … I have forgotten to mention his command of French and German, the former of which he knew very well, and the latter quite sufficiently; …
In paper, 'William Kingdon Clifford', The Fortnightly Review (1879), 31, 671. Published in advance of Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Clifford’s Lectures and Essays (1879), Vol. 1, Introduction, 9. The 'Introduction' was written by Pollock.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Alphabet (14)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Arabic (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certain (557)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chance (244)  |  William Kingdon Clifford (23)  |  Command (60)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Course (413)  |  Desire (212)  |  Divine (112)  |  Early (196)  |  Enough (341)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Former (138)  |  French (21)  |  General (521)  |  German (37)  |  Greek (109)  |  Hieroglyphic (6)  |  Interest (416)  |  Journal (31)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Paper (192)  |  Practical (225)  |  Progress (492)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Read (308)  |  Reason (766)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Shorthand (5)  |  Special (188)  |  Spent (85)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tour (2)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)

I do not believe that science per se is an adequate source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my own happiness, which I attribute to defecating twice a day with unfailing regularity. Science in itself appears to me neutral, that is to say, it increases men’s power whether for good or for evil. An appreciation of the ends of life is something which must be superadded to science if it is to bring happiness, but only the kind of society to which science is apt to give rise. I am afraid you may be disappointed that I am not more of an apostle of science, but as I grow older, and no doubt—as a result of the decay of my tissues, I begin to see the good life more and more as a matter of balance and to dread all over-emphasis upon anyone ingredient.
Letter to W. W. Norton, Publisher (27 Jan 1931). In The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1914-1944 (1968), Vol. 2, 200.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Age (509)  |  Apostle (3)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Balance (82)  |  Begin (275)  |  Belief (615)  |  Decay (59)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dread (13)  |  Emphasis (18)  |  End (603)  |  Evil (122)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Increase (225)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neutral (15)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Source (101)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tissue (51)

I do not believe that the present flowering of science is due in the least to a real appreciation of the beauty and intellectual discipline of the subject. It is due simply to the fact that power, wealth and prestige can only be obtained by the correct application of science.
In 'Some Reflections on the Present Status of Organic Chemistry', Science and Human Progress: Addresses at the Celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the Mellon Institute (1963), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Present (630)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Subject (543)  |  Wealth (100)

I do not hope for any relief, and that is because I have committed no crime. I might hope for and obtain pardon, if I had erred, for it is to faults that the prince can bring indulgence, whereas against one wrongfully sentenced while he was innocent, it is expedient, in order to put up a show of strict lawfulness, to uphold rigor… . But my most holy intention, how clearly would it appear if some power would bring to light the slanders, frauds, and stratagems, and trickeries that were used eighteen years ago in Rome in order to deceive the authorities!
In Letter to Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (22 Feb 1635). As quoted in translation in Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (1976), 324.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Authority (99)  |  Commit (43)  |  Crime (39)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fault (58)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Holy (35)  |  Hope (321)  |  Indulgence (6)  |  Innocent (13)  |  Intention (46)  |  Lawfulness (5)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Order (638)  |  Pardon (7)  |  Relief (30)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Rome (19)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Show (353)  |  Slander (3)  |  Stratagem (2)  |  Trickery (2)  |  Year (963)

I had made up my mind to find that for which I was searching even if it required the remainder of my life. After innumerable failures I finally uncovered the principle for which I was searching, and I was astounded at its simplicity. I was still more astounded to discover the principle I had revealed not only beneficial in the construction of a mechanical hearing aid but it served as well as means of sending the sound of the voice over a wire. Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that when a man gives his order to produce a definite result and stands by that order it seems to have the effect of giving him what might be termed a second sight which enables him to see right through ordinary problems. What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.
As quoted, without citation, in Mack R. Douglas, Making a Habit of Success: How to Make a Habit of Succeeding, How to Win With High Self-Esteem (1966, 1994), 38. Note: Webmaster is dubious of a quote which seems to appear in only one source, without a citation, decades after Bell’s death. If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Astound (9)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Construction (114)  |  Definite (114)  |  Determined (9)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enable (122)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Term (357)  |  Through (846)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Want (504)  |  Wire (36)

I have been arranging certain experiments in reference to the notion that Gravity itself may be practically and directly related by experiment to the other powers of matter and this morning proceeded to make them. It was almost with a feeling of awe that I went to work, for if the hope should prove well founded, how great and mighty and sublime in its hitherto unchangeable character is the force I am trying to deal with, and how large may be the new domain of knowledge that may be opened up to the mind of man.
In ‎Thomas Martin (ed.) Faraday’s Diary: Sept. 6, 1847 - Oct. 17, 1851 (1934), 156.
Science quotes on:  |  Awe (43)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Deal (192)  |  Domain (72)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Force (497)  |  Founded (22)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mighty (13)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mind Of Man (7)  |  Morning (98)  |  New (1273)  |  Notion (120)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Prove (261)  |  Relate (26)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Trying (144)  |  Unchangeable (11)  |  Work (1402)

I have been driven to assume for some time, especially in relation to the gases, a sort of conducting power for magnetism. Mere space is Zero. One substance being made to occupy a given portion of space will cause more lines of force to pass through that space than before, and another substance will cause less to pass. The former I now call Paramagnetic & the latter are the diamagnetic. The former need not of necessity assume a polarity of particles such as iron has with magnetic, and the latter do not assume any such polarity either direct or reverse. I do not say more to you just now because my own thoughts are only in the act of formation, but this I may say: that the atmosphere has an extraordinary magnetic constitution, & I hope & expect to find in it the cause of the annual & diurnal variations, but keep this to yourself until I have time to see what harvest will spring from my growing ideas.
Letter to William Whewell, 22 Aug 1850. In L. Pearce Williams (ed.), The Selected Correspondence of Michael Faraday (1971), Vol. 2, 589.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Formation (100)  |  Former (138)  |  Growing (99)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Iron (99)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Particle (200)  |  Pass (241)  |  Polarity (5)  |  Portion (86)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Spring (140)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zero (38)

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
from Origin of Species (1859, 1888), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Call (781)  |  Equally (129)  |  Expression (181)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Order (638)  |  Principle (530)  |  Selection (130)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Term (357)  |  Useful (260)  |  Variation (93)

I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to conviction, in common I believe with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action.
Paper read to the Royal Institution (20 Nov 1845). 'On the Magnetization of Light and the Illumination of Magnetic Lines of Force', Series 19. In Experimental Researches in Electricity (1855), Vol. 3, 1. Reprinted from Philosophical Transactions (1846), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Belief (615)  |  Common (447)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possession (68)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Various (205)  |  Word (650)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organic (161)  |  Piece (39)  |  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 satisfied myself that the [cosmic] rays are not generated by the formation of new matter in space, a process which would be like water running up a hill. Nor do they come to any appreciable amount from the stars. According to my investigations the sun emits a radiation of such penetrative power that it is virtually impossible to absorb it in lead or other substances. ... This ray, which I call the primary solar ray, gives rise to a secondary radiation by impact against the cosmic dust scattered through space. It is the secondary radiation which now is commonly called the cosmic ray, and comes, of course, equally from all directions in space. [The article continues: The phenomena of radioactivity are not the result of forces within the radioactive substances but are caused by this ray emitted by the sun. If radium could be screened effectively against this ray it would cease to be radioactive, he said.]
Quoted in 'Tesla, 75, Predicts New Power Source', New York Times (5 Jul 1931), Section 2, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  According (236)  |  Against (332)  |  Amount (153)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Course (413)  |  Direction (185)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Emit (15)  |  Equally (129)  |  Force (497)  |  Formation (100)  |  Hill (23)  |  Impact (45)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Lead (391)  |  Matter (821)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Primary (82)  |  Process (439)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Radium (29)  |  Ray (115)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Running (61)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sun (407)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)

I have the same sense of the power and virtue of knowledge that some people get from a religious background.
From interview with Anthony Liversidge, in 'Walter Gilbert', Omni (Nov 1992), 15, No. 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Science And Religion (337)

I hope that in due time the chemists will justify their proceedings by some large generalisations deduced from the infinity of results which they have collected. For me I am left hopelessly behind and I will acknowledge to you that through my bad memory organic chemistry is to me a sealed book. Some of those here, [August] Hoffman for instance, consider all this however as scaffolding, which will disappear when the structure is built. I hope the structure will be worthy of the labour. I should expect a better and a quicker result from the study of the powers of matter, but then I have a predilection that way and am probably prejudiced in judgment.
Letter to Christian Schönbein (9 Dec 1852), The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein, 1836-1862 (1899), 209-210.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Bad (185)  |  Behind (139)  |  Better (493)  |  Book (413)  |  Building (158)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Collection (68)  |  Consider (428)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Due (143)  |  Expect (203)  |  Generalization (61)  |  August Wilhelm von Hofmann (7)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hopelessness (6)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Memory (144)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Predilection (4)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Quickness (5)  |  Result (700)  |  Seal (19)  |  Sealed Book (2)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)

I like to look at mathematics almost more as an art than as a science; for the activity of the mathematician, constantly creating as he is, guided though not controlled by the external world of the senses, bears a resemblance, not fanciful I believe but real, to the activity of an artist, of a painter let us say. Rigorous deductive reasoning on the part of the mathematician may be likened here to technical skill in drawing on the part of the painter. Just as no one can become a good painter without a certain amount of skill, so no one can become a mathematician without the power to reason accurately up to a certain point. Yet these qualities, fundamental though they are, do not make a painter or mathematician worthy of the name, nor indeed are they the most important factors in the case. Other qualities of a far more subtle sort, chief among which in both cases is imagination, go to the making of a good artist or good mathematician.
From 'Fundamental Conceptions and Methods in Mathematics', Bulletin American Mathematical Society (1904), 9, 133. As cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 182.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Amount (153)  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Both (496)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chief (99)  |  Control (182)  |  Create (245)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drawing (56)  |  External (62)  |  Factor (47)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  Guide (107)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Important (229)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Look (584)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painter (30)  |  Point (584)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Skill (116)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Technical (53)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

I myself, a professional mathematician, on re-reading my own work find it strains my mental powers to recall to mind from the figures the meanings of the demonstrations, meanings which I myself originally put into the figures and the text from my mind. But when I attempt to remedy the obscurity of the material by putting in extra words, I see myself falling into the opposite fault of becoming chatty in something mathematical.
Astronomia Nova, New Astronomy, (1609), Introduction, second paragraph.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Fault (58)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Professional (77)  |  Publication (102)  |  Reading (136)  |  Remedy (63)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Noise (40)  |  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 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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Orchid (4)  |  People (1031)  |  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 propose to substitute the word 'autonomic'. The word implies a certain degree of independent action, but exercised under control of a higher power. The 'autonomic' nervous system means the nervous system of the glands and of the involuntary muscle; it governs the 'organic' functions of the body.
'On the Union of Cranial Autonomic (Visceral) Fibres w;th the Nerve Cells of the Superior Cervical Ganglion', The Journal of Physiology, 1898-99, 23, 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Autonomic (2)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Control (182)  |  Degree (277)  |  Function (235)  |  Gland (14)  |  Govern (66)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Organic (161)  |  Substitute (47)  |  System (545)  |  Word (650)

I remember my first look at the great treatise of Maxwell’s when I was a young man… I saw that it was great, greater and greatest, with prodigious possibilities in its power… I was determined to master the book and set to work. I was very ignorant. I had no knowledge of mathematical analysis (having learned only school algebra and trigonometry which I had largely forgotten) and thus my work was laid out for me. It took me several years before I could understand as much as I possibly could. Then I set Maxwell aside and followed my own course. And I progressed much more quickly… It will be understood that I preach the gospel according to my interpretation of Maxwell.
From translations of a letter (24 Feb 1918), cited in Paul J. Nahin, Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age (2002), 24. Nahin footnotes that the words are not verbatim, but are the result of two translations. Heaviside's original letter in English was quoted, translated in to French by J. Bethenode, for the obituary he wrote, "Oliver Heaviside", in Annales des Posies Telegraphs (1925), 14, 521-538. The quote was retranslated back to English in Nadin's book. Bethenode footnoted that he made the original translation "as literally as possible in order not to change the meaning." Nadin assures that the retranslation was done likewise. Heaviside studyied Maxwell's two-volume Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Book (413)  |  Course (413)  |  Determination (80)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Gospel (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  More (2558)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Preach (11)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Progress (492)  |  Remember (189)  |  Saw (160)  |  School (227)  |  Set (400)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Trigonometry (7)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

I say that the power of vision extends through the visual rays to the surface of non-transparent bodies, while the power possessed by these bodies extends to the power of vision.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Extend (129)  |  Possess (157)  |  Ray (115)  |  Say (989)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Vision (127)  |  Visual (16)

I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have—POWER.
About the improved steam engine invented by James Watt and brought into production at Boulton’s manufactory.
Entry for Friday 22 March 1776. In George Birkbeck-Hill (ed.), Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1934-50), Vol. 2, 459.
Science quotes on:  |  Desire (212)  |  Engine (99)  |  Production (190)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  James Watt (11)  |  World (1850)

I shall devote only a few lines to the expression of my belief in the importance of science for mankind…. … [I]t is by…daily striving after knowledge that man has raised himself to the unique position he occupies on earth, and that his power and well-being have continually increased.
In opening paragraph of 'Memorandum by Madame Curie, Member of the Committee, on the Question of International Scolarships for the Advancement of the Sciences and the Development of Laboratories' published by the League of Nations, Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, Geneva (16 Jun 1926)
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Continually (17)  |  Daily (91)  |  Devote (45)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expression (181)  |  Himself (461)  |  Importance (299)  |  Importance Of Science (2)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Line (100)  |  Man (2252)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Position (83)  |  Raise (38)  |  Strive (53)  |  Unique (72)  |  Well-Being (5)

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)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observe (179)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Planet (402)  |  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 should study Nature’s laws in all their crossings and unions; I should follow magnetic streams to their source and follow the shores of our magnetic oceans. I should go among the rays of the aurora, and follow them to their beginnings, and study their dealings and communications with other powers and expressions of matter.
John Muir
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aurora (3)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Communication (101)  |  Crossing (3)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Expression (181)  |  Follow (389)  |  Law (913)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ray (115)  |  Shore (25)  |  Source (101)  |  Stream (83)  |  Study (701)  |  Union (52)

I stood there with only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me with – hands, feet, and teeth.
In The Time Machine (1898), 129.
Science quotes on:  |  Endowed (52)  |  Foot (65)  |  Hand (149)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

I think a strong claim can be made that the process of scientific discovery may be regarded as a form of art. This is best seen in the theoretical aspects of Physical Science. The mathematical theorist builds up on certain assumptions and according to well understood logical rules, step by step, a stately edifice, while his imaginative power brings out clearly the hidden relations between its parts. A well constructed theory is in some respects undoubtedly an artistic production. A fine example is the famous Kinetic Theory of Maxwell. ... The theory of relativity by Einstein, quite apart from any question of its validity, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent work of art.
Responding to the toast, 'Science!' at the Royal Academy of the Arts in 1932.)
Quoted in Lawrence Badash, 'Ernest Rutherford and Theoretical Physics,' in Robert Kargon and Peter Achinstein (eds.) Kelvin's Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives (1987), 352.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  According (236)  |  Art (680)  |  Artistic (24)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Best (467)  |  Build (211)  |  Certain (557)  |  Claim (154)  |  Construct (129)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Form (976)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kinetic (12)  |  Kinetic Theory (7)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Process (439)  |  Production (190)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Respect (212)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Academy (3)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Stately (12)  |  Step (234)  |  Step By Step (11)  |  Strong (182)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Think (1122)  |  Toast (8)  |  Understood (155)  |  Validity (50)  |  Work (1402)

Thomas Robert Malthus quote Food is necessary to…existence
colorization © todayinsci (Terms of Use) (source)

Please respect the colorization artist’s wishes and do not copy this image for ONLINE use anywhere else.

Thank you.

For offline use, click Terms of Use tab on top menu.

I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, That food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state. These two laws ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear to have been fixed laws of our nature; and, as we have not hitherto seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they will ever cease to be what they are now, without an immediate act of power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe; and for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed laws, all its various operations.
First 'Essay on the Principle of Population' (1798), reprinted in Parallel Chapters from the First and Second editions of An Essay on the Principle of Population (1895), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Arranged (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cease (81)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Creator (97)  |  Creature (242)  |  Execute (7)  |  Existence (481)  |  First (1302)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Food (213)  |  God (776)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Passion (121)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Present (630)  |  Remain (355)  |  Right (473)  |  Sex (68)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  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)  |