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: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Primarily

Primarily Quotes (12 quotes)

A man’s value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Action (342)  |  Bad (185)  |  Call (781)  |  Community (111)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direct (228)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Far (158)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fellow (88)  |  First (1302)  |  First Sight (6)  |  Good (906)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Promote (32)  |  Quality (139)  |  Sight (135)  |  Social (261)  |  Stand (284)  |  Thought (995)  |  Value (393)

During the eight days I spent in space, I realized that mankind needs height primarily to better know our long-suffering Earth, to see what cannot be seen close up. Not just to love her beauty, but also to ensure that we do not bring even the slightest harm to the natural world
In Jack Hassard and Julie Weisberg , Environmental Science on the Net: The Global Thinking Project (1999), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Better (493)  |  Bring (95)  |  Close (77)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Harm (43)  |  Height (33)  |  Know (1538)  |  Long (778)  |  Love (328)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Need (320)  |  Realize (157)  |  See (1094)  |  Slight (32)  |  Space (523)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Suffering (68)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Power (771)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seek (218)  |  Source (101)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)

I am not insensible to natural beauty, but my emotional joys center on the improbable yet sometimes wondrous works of that tiny and accidental evolutionary twig called Homo sapiens. And I find, among these works, nothing more noble than the history of our struggle to understand nature—a majestic entity of such vast spatial and temporal scope that she cannot care much for a little mammalian afterthought with a curious evolutionary invention, even if that invention has, for the first time in so me four billion years of life on earth, produced recursion as a creature reflects back upon its own production and evolution. Thus, I love nature primarily for the puzzles and intellectual delights that she offers to the first organ capable of such curious contemplation.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Afterthought (6)  |  Back (395)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Billion (104)  |  Call (781)  |  Capable (174)  |  Care (203)  |  Center (35)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Creature (242)  |  Curious (95)  |  Delight (111)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emotional (17)  |  Entity (37)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  First Time (14)  |  History (716)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Invention (400)  |  Joy (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life On Earth (16)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Mammalian (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Beauty (5)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organ (118)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Scope (44)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Spatial (10)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Temporal (4)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Twig (15)  |  Understand (648)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

I am very fond of the oyster shell. It is humble and awkward and ugly. It is slate-colored and unsymmetrical. Its form is not primarily beautiful but functional. I make fun of its knobbiness. Sometimes I resent its burdens and excrescences. But its tireless adaptability and tenacity draw my astonished admiration and sometimes even my tears. And it is comfortable in its familiarity, its homeliness, like old garden gloves when have molded themselves perfectly to the shape of the hand.
In 'Oyster Bed', Gift From the Sea (1955), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptability (7)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Color (155)  |  Draw (140)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Fond (13)  |  Form (976)  |  Functional (10)  |  Garden (64)  |  Humble (54)  |  Mold (37)  |  Old (499)  |  Oyster (12)  |  Shell (69)  |  Slate (6)  |  Tear (48)  |  Tenacity (10)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Tireless (5)  |  Ugly (14)

It is primarily through the growth of science and technology that man has acquired those attributes which distinguish him from the animals, which have indeed made it possible for him to become human.
In The Human Meaning of Science (1940), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Animal (651)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Become (821)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Man (2252)  |  Possible (560)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Technology (281)  |  Through (846)

Mathematicians can and do fill in gaps, correct errors, and supply more detail and more careful scholarship when they are called on or motivated to do so. Our system is quite good at producing reliable theorems that can be backed up. It’s just that the reliability does not primarily come from mathematicians checking formal arguments; it come from mathematicians thinking carefully and critically about mathematical ideas.
Concerning revision of proofs. In 'On Proof and Progress in Mathematics', For the Learning of Mathematics (Feb 1995), 15, No. 1, 33. Reprinted from Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (1994), 30, No. 2, 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Back (395)  |  Call (781)  |  Careful (28)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Checking (3)  |  Correct (95)  |  Critical (73)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Error (339)  |  Formal (37)  |  Gap (36)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Motivate (8)  |  Motivated (14)  |  Reliability (18)  |  Reliable (13)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Supply (100)  |  System (545)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thinking (425)

Science is not gadgetry. The desirable adjuncts of modern living, although in many instances made possible by science, certainly do not constitute science. Basic scientific knowledge often (but not always) is a prerequisite to such developments, but technology primarily deserves the credit for having the financial courage, the ingenuity, and the driving energy to see to it that so-called ‘pure knowledge’ is in fact brought to the practical service of man. And it should also be recognized that those who have the urge to apply knowledge usefully have themselves often made significant contribution to pure knowledge and have even more often served as a stimulation to the activities of a pure researcher.
Warren Weaver (1894–1978), U.S. mathematician, scientist, educator. Science and Imagination, ch. 1, Basic Books (1967).
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Adjunct (3)  |  Apply (170)  |  Basic (144)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Courage (82)  |  Credit (24)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drive (61)  |  Driving (28)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Financial (5)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Instance (33)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Often (109)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prerequisite (9)  |  Pure (299)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Knowledge (11)  |  See (1094)  |  Serve (64)  |  Service (110)  |  Significant (78)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Technology (281)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Urge (17)

The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples’ lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admirably (3)  |  Against (332)  |  Base (120)  |  Blend (9)  |  Both (496)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Development (441)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Especially (31)  |  Fear (212)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guard (19)  |  High (370)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Jewish (15)  |  Level (69)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  New Testament (3)  |  Orient (5)  |  People (1031)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Purely (111)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Life (8)  |  Step (234)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Type (171)  |  Vary (27)

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Being (1276)  |  Determine (152)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Measure (241)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  True (239)  |  Value (393)

We often think, naïvely, that missing data are the primary impediments to intellectual progress–just find the right facts and all problems will dissipate. But barriers are often deeper and more abstract in thought. We must have access to the right metaphor, not only to the requisite information. Revolutionary thinkers are not, primarily, gatherers of fact s, but weavers of new intellectual structures.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Access (21)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Data (162)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dissipate (8)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gather (76)  |  Impediment (12)  |  Information (173)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Iuml (3)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Na (3)  |  New (1273)  |  Often (109)  |  Primary (82)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Requisite (12)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Right (473)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thought (995)  |  Will (2350)

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.
In The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), Preface.
Science quotes on:  |  Delusion (26)  |  Haunt (6)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Image (97)  |  Reality (274)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Vice (42)  |  Weakness (50)


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.