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: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Prescribe

Prescribe Quotes (11 quotes)

…there is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you’ve made the intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps. In my case, it often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find that they don’t work, so I have to give it up.
In Michael Harwood, 'The Universe and Dr. Hawking', New York Times Magazine (23 Jan 1983), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrive (40)  |  Case (102)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fill (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Give (208)  |  Happen (282)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Intuitive (14)  |  Justify (26)  |  Leap (57)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Often (109)  |  Route (16)  |  Step (234)  |  Try (296)  |  Work (1402)

Building goes on briskly at the therapeutic Tower of Babel; what one recommends another condemns; what one gives in large doses another scarce dares to prescribe in small doses; and what one vaunts as a novelty another thinks not worth rescuing from merited oblivion. All is confusion, contradiction, inconceivable chaos. Every country, every place, almost every doctor, have their own pet remedies, without which they imagine their patients can not be cured; and all this changes every year, aye every mouth.
Weekly Medical Gazette, of Vienna
Science quotes on:  |  Babel (3)  |  Briskly (2)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Change (639)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Country (269)  |  Cure (124)  |  Dare (55)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Dose (17)  |  Give (208)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inconceivable (13)  |  Large (398)  |  Merit (51)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pet (10)  |  Place (192)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Scarce (11)  |  Small (489)  |  Therapeutic (6)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tower (45)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

But … the working scientist … is not consciously following any prescribed course of action, but feels complete freedom to utilize any method or device whatever which in the particular situation before him seems likely to yield the correct answer. … No one standing on the outside can predict what the individual scientist will do or what method he will follow.
In Reflections of a Physicist: A Collection of Essays (1955, 1980), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Answer (389)  |  Complete (209)  |  Consciously (6)  |  Correct (95)  |  Course (413)  |  Device (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Feel (371)  |  Follow (389)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Individual (420)  |  Likely (36)  |  Method (531)  |  Outside (141)  |  Particular (80)  |  Predict (86)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seem (150)  |  Situation (117)  |  Stand (284)  |  Utilize (10)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yield (86)

Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing. (1760)
In Robert Allan Weinberg, The Biology of Cancer (2006), 726. (Note: Webmaster has not yet found this quote, in this wording, in a major quotation reference book. If you know a primary print source, or correction, please contact Webmaster.)
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Cure (124)  |  Disease (340)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Physician (284)

If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
In The Conquest of Happiness (1930), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Holiday (12)  |  Important (229)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medical (31)  |  Patient (209)  |  Work (1402)

In not a few the [opium-eating] habit has crept upon them almost unconsciously, during the medicinal use of opiates to soothe pain, to remove sleeplessness, or to arrest protracted bowel-complaint. The risk of this evil should therefore be carefully borne in mind, for life-long misery has often been caused by undue laxity in the prescribing of opiates.
In 'Clinical Lecture On The Treatment Of The Habit Of Opium-Eating', The British Medical Journal (15 Feb 1868), 1, No. 372, 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Addiction (6)  |  Arrest (9)  |  Bowel (17)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Creep (15)  |  Eating (46)  |  Evil (122)  |  Habit (174)  |  Laxity (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Misery (31)  |  Opiate (2)  |  Opium (7)  |  Pain (144)  |  Prescribing (5)  |  Protracted (2)  |  Remove (50)  |  Risk (68)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Use (771)

It is known that the mathematics prescribed for the high school [Gymnasien] is essentially Euclidean, while it is modern mathematics, the theory of functions and the infinitesimal calculus, which has secured for us an insight into the mechanism and laws of nature. Euclidean mathematics is indeed, a prerequisite for the theory of functions, but just as one, though he has learned the inflections of Latin nouns and verbs, will not thereby be enabled to read a Latin author much less to appreciate the beauties of a Horace, so Euclidean mathematics, that is the mathematics of the high school, is unable to unlock nature and her laws.
In Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (1889), 37-38. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Author (175)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Enable (122)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Function (235)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Horace (12)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Inflection (4)  |  Insight (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Latin (44)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Less (105)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noun (6)  |  Prerequisite (9)  |  Read (308)  |  School (227)  |  Secure (23)  |  Secured (18)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unable (25)  |  Unlock (12)  |  Verb (4)  |  Will (2350)

Nine-tenths of diseases are medicinal diseases.
[Lamenting the diseases resulting from the continued prescribing of harmful medicinal remedies.]
Quoted by William M. Scribner, 'Treatment of Pneumonia and Croup, Once More, Etc,' in The Medical World (1885), 3, 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Continue (179)  |  Disease (340)  |  Harmful (13)  |  Lament (11)  |  Medicinal (3)  |  Nine-Tenths (3)  |  Poison (46)  |  Prescribing (5)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Result (700)

Universities…have been singularly unable to prescribe for themselves any satisfactory formulae for raising the average graduate to a position of maximum individuality and usefulness.
Co-author with Louis Jay Heath, in A New Basis for Social Progress (1917), 151.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Education (423)  |  Formula (102)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Position (83)  |  Raise (38)  |  Satisfactory (19)  |  Unable (25)  |  University (130)  |  Usefulness (92)

What makes philosophy so tedious is not the profundity of philosophers, but their lack of art; they are like physicians who sought to cure a slight hyperacidity by prescribing a carload of burned oyster-shells.
In A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949, 1956), 617.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burned (2)  |  Carload (2)  |  Cure (124)  |  Lack (127)  |  Oyster (12)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physician (284)  |  Prescribing (5)  |  Profundity (6)  |  Seek (218)  |  Shell (69)  |  Slight (32)  |  Tedious (15)

While religion prescribes brotherly love in the relations among the individuals and groups, the actual spectacle more resembles a battlefield than an orchestra. Everywhere, in economic as well as in political life, the guiding principle is one of ruthless striving for success at the expense of one’s fellow men. This competitive spirit prevails even in school and, destroying all feelings of human fraternity and cooperation, conceives of achievement not as derived from the love for productive and thoughtful work, but as springing from personal ambition and fear of rejection.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Actual (118)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Battlefield (9)  |  Brotherly (2)  |  Competitive (8)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Derive (70)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Economic (84)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Expense (21)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Fraternity (4)  |  Group (83)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Orchestra (3)  |  Personal (75)  |  Political (124)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Principle (530)  |  Productive (37)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Relation (166)  |  Religion (369)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  School (227)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strive (53)  |  Success (327)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Work (1402)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.