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: “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, ... finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell ... whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Primary

Primary Quotes (82 quotes)

… man-midwifery, with other “indecencies,” is a great system of fashionable prostitution; a primary school of infamy—as the fashionable hotel and parlor wine glass qualify candidates for the two-penny grog-shop and the gutter.
Man-midwifery Exposed and Corrected (1848)
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Candidate (8)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Fashionable (15)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grog (2)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  School (227)  |  System (545)  |  Two (936)  |  Wine (39)

[About research with big particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider.] I think the primary justification for this sort of science that we do is fundamental human curiosity. ... It's true, of course, that every previous generation that's made some breakthrough in understanding nature has seen those discoveries translated into new technologies, new possibilities for the human race. That may well happen with the Higgs boson. Quite frankly, at the moment I don't see how you can use the Higgs boson for anything useful.
As quoted in Alan Boyle, 'Discovery of Doom? Collider Stirs Debate', article (8 Sep 2008) on a msnbc.com web page.
Science quotes on:  |  Accelerator (11)  |  Breakthrough (18)  |  Course (413)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Generation (256)  |  Happen (282)  |  Higgs Boson (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Justification (52)  |  Large (398)  |  Large Hadron Collider (6)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Accelerator (4)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Previous (17)  |  Race (278)  |  Research (753)  |  See (1094)  |  Technology (281)  |  Think (1122)  |  Translation (21)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)

[To identify ancient sites] The primary requirement is a human skeleton or artifacts that are clearly the work of humans. Next, this evidence must lie in situ within undisturbed geological deposits. The artifacts should be directly associated with stratigraphy. Finally, the minimum age of the site must be determined by a direct link with fossils of known age or with material that has been reliably dated.
As quoted in Sharman Apt Russell, When the Land Was Young: Reflections on American Archaeology (2001), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Artifact (5)  |  Associate (25)  |  Date (14)  |  Deposit (12)  |  Determine (152)  |  Direct (228)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geology (240)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identify (13)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Lie (370)  |  Link (48)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Reliable (13)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Site (19)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Stratigraphy (7)  |  Undisturbed (4)  |  Work (1402)

[Of the Laputans:] They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty one and a half.
Gulliver's Travels (1726, Penguin ed. 1967), Part III, Chap. 3, 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Diameter (28)  |  Discover (571)  |  Former (138)  |  Hour (192)  |  Mars (47)  |  Moon (252)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Planet (402)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Two (936)

Les causes primordiales ne nous sont point connues; mais elles sont assujetties à des lois simples et constantes, que l’on peut découvrir par l’observation, et dont l’étude est l’objet de la philosophie naturelle.
Primary causes are unknown to us; but are subject to simple and constant laws, which may be discovered by observation, the study of them being the object of natural philosophy.
Opening statement from 'Discours Préliminaire' to Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur (1822), i, translated by Alexander Freeman in The Analytical Theory of Heat (1878), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Constant (148)  |  Discover (571)  |  Law (913)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  Simple (426)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Unknown (195)

~~[Dubious]~~ To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.
Aristotle
So far, Webmaster cannot find any primary source. The statement is enclosed in quotation marks and introduced as “Aristotle observed," in The Classical World (1958), 122. However, John Burnet, in Early Greek Philosophy (1892), 41, writes “If Thales ever wrote anything, it soon was lost…. Aristotle professes to know something about the views of Thales; but he … himself simply gives them for what they are worth.” Burnet continues on page 43, “We are, perhaps, justified in holding that the greatness of Thales consisted just in this, that he was the first to ask, not what was the original form of matter, but what is the primary form of matter now.” Note that Burnet expresses this narrative form without attributing anything to Aristotle with quotation marks, and furthermore the latter statement seems to contradict the subject quote. Contact Webmaster if you can help source the subject quote.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Know (1538)  |  Question (649)  |  Thales (9)

~~[need primary source]~~ One of the most frightening things in the Western world and in this country in particular is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10000 years old in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.
As quoted, without citation, in Joan Konner, The Atheist’s Bible: An Illustrious Collection of Irreverent Thought (2007), 46. Webmaster is dubious about authenticity, and as yet, has been unable to find a reliable primary source - can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Belief (615)  |  Country (269)  |  Earth (1076)  |  False (105)  |  Fright (11)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  People (1031)  |  Psychiatrist (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Western (45)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

~~[No known primary source]~~ If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
As quoted, without citation in 'Preface', Norman T.J. Bailey the Mathematical Approach to Biology and Medicine (1967, 1989), v. Also in revised book, Norman T. J. Bailey, Mathematics, Statistics, and Systems for Health (1977), 51. Webmaster has so far found no primary source for verification (Can you help?)
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Known (453)  |  Need (320)  |  Statistics (170)

A sound Physics of the Earth should include all the primary considerations of the earth's atmosphere, of the characteristics and continual changes of the earth's external crust, and finally of the origin and development of living organisms. These considerations naturally divide the physics of the earth into three essential parts, the first being a theory of the atmosphere, or Meteorology, the second, a theory of the earth's external crust, or Hydrogeology, and the third, a theory of living organisms, or Biology.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Change (639)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Continual (44)  |  Crust (43)  |  Development (441)  |  Divide (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Essential (210)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Include (93)  |  Living (492)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Sound (187)  |  Theory (1015)

Although species may be discrete, they have no immutable essence. Variation is the raw material of evolutionary change. It represents the fundamental reality of nature, not an accident about a created norm. Variation is primary; essences are illusory. Species must be defined as ranges of irreducible variation.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Change (639)  |  Create (245)  |  Define (53)  |  Discrete (11)  |  Essence (85)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Illusory (2)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Irreducible (7)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Norm (5)  |  Range (104)  |  Raw (28)  |  Reality (274)  |  Represent (157)  |  Species (435)  |  Variation (93)

Among natural bodies some have, and some have not, life; and by life we mean the faculties of self-nourishment, self-growth and self-decay. Thus every natural body partaking of life may be regarded as an essential existence; … but then it is an existence only in combination. … And since the organism is such a combination, being possessed of life, it cannot be the Vital Principle. Therefore it follows that the Vital Principle most be an essence, as being the form of a natural body, holding life in potentiality; but essence is a reality (entetechie). The Vital Principle is the original reality of a natural body endowed with potential life; this, however, is to be understood only of a body which may be organized. Thus the parts even of plants are organs, but they are organs that are altogether simple; as the leaf which is the covering of the pericarp, the pericarp of the fruit. If, then, there be any general formula for every kind of Vital Principle, it is—tthe primary reality of an organism.
Aristotle
In George Henry Lewes, Aristotle (1864), 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Combination (150)  |  Covering (14)  |  Decay (59)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Essence (85)  |  Essential (210)  |  Existence (481)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Formula (102)  |  Fruit (108)  |  General (521)  |  Growth (200)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organism (231)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possess (157)  |  Potential (75)  |  Potentiality (9)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reality (274)  |  Regard (312)  |  Self (268)  |  Simple (426)  |  Understood (155)  |  Vital (89)

At fertilization, these two “haploid” nuclei are added together to make a “diploid” nucleus that now contains 2a, 2b and so on; and, by the splitting of each chromosome and the regulated karyokinetic separation of the daughter chromosomes, this double series is inherited by both of the primary blastomeres. In the resulting resting nuclei the individual chromosomes are apparently destroyed. But we have the strongest of indications that, in the stroma of the resting nucleus, every one of the chromosomes that enters the nucleus survives as a well-defined region; and as the cell prepares for its next division this region again gives rise to the same chromosome (Theory of the Individuality of the Chromosomes). In this way the two sets of chromosomes brought together at fertilization are inherited by all the cells of the new individual. It is only in the germinal cells that the so called reduction division converts the double series into a single one. Out of the diploid state, the haploid is once again generated.
In Arch. Zellforsch, 1909, 3, 181, trans. Henry Harris, The Birth of the Cell (1999), 171-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Division (67)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Indication (33)  |  Individual (420)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Rise (169)  |  Separation (60)  |  Series (153)  |  Set (400)  |  Single (365)  |  State (505)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Survive (87)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Well-Defined (9)

Behavioral avoidance, not physiological adaptations, is an organism’s primary response to an environmental challenge. This point is elementary, but it is by no means trivial.
From 'Interspecific comparison as a tool for ecological physiologists', collected in M.E. Feder, A.F. Bennett, W.W. Burggren, and R.B. Huey, (eds.), New Directions in Ecological Physiology (1987), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Avoidance (11)  |  Behavioral (6)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Environment (239)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Organism (231)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Point (584)  |  Response (56)  |  Trivial (59)

Christianity possesses the source of its justification within itself and does not expect science to constitute its primary apologetic. Science must bear witness to its own worth.
In Letter (1 Jun 1988) to Father George V. Coyne, Director of the Vatican Observatory. On vatican.va website.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Christianity (11)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Expect (203)  |  Justification (52)  |  Must (1525)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Witness (57)  |  Worth (172)

Everyone admits that the male is the primary efficient cause in generation, as being that in whom the species or form resides, and they further assert that his genitures emitted in coitus causes the egg both to exist and to be fertile. But how the semen of the cock produces the chick from the egg, neither the philosophers nor the physicians of yesterday or today have satisfactorily explained, or solved the problem formulated by Aristotle.
Disputations Touching the Generation of Animals (1651), trans. Gweneth Whitteridge (1981), Chapter 47, 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Assert (69)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cock (6)  |  Egg (71)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physician (284)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Reside (25)  |  Semen (5)  |  Species (435)  |  Today (321)  |  Yesterday (37)

Evolution is the conviction that organisms developed their current forms by an extended history of continual transformation, and that ties of genealogy bind all living things into one nexus. Panselectionism is a denial of history, for perfection covers the tracks of time. A perfect wing may have evolved to its current state, but it may have been created just as we find it. We simply cannot tell if perfection be our only evidence. As Darwin himself understood so well, the primary proofs of evolution are oddities and imperfections that must record pathways of historical descent–the panda’s thumb and the flamingo’s smile of my book titles (chosen to illustrate this paramount principle of history).
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bind (26)  |  Book (413)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Continual (44)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Cover (40)  |  Create (245)  |  Current (122)  |  Darwin (14)  |  Denial (20)  |  Descent (30)  |  Develop (278)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extend (129)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flamingo (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Genealogy (4)  |  Himself (461)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Things (8)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nexus (4)  |  Oddity (4)  |  Organism (231)  |  Panda (2)  |  Paramount (11)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Record (161)  |  Simply (53)  |  Smile (34)  |  State (505)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thumb (18)  |  Tie (42)  |  Time (1911)  |  Title (20)  |  Track (42)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Wing (79)

Fiction is, indeed, an indispensable supplement to logic, or even a part of it; whether we are working inductively or deductively, both ways hang closely together with fiction: and axioms, though they seek to be primary verities, are more akin to fiction. If we had realized the nature of axioms, the doctrine of Einstein, which sweeps away axioms so familiar to us that they seem obvious truths, and substitutes others which seem absurd because they are unfamiliar, might not have been so bewildering.
In The Dance of Life (1923), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Akin (5)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Bewildering (5)  |  Both (496)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Fiction (23)  |  Hang (46)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Logic (311)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Realize (157)  |  Seek (218)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Supplement (7)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Together (392)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  Verity (5)  |  Way (1214)

From common salt are obtained chemically as primary derivatives chlorine—both a war gas and a means of purifying water; and 'caustic soda.' … [O]n the chlorine side there is obtained chloride of lime, (a bleaching powder and a disinfectant), chloroform (an anesthetic), phosgene (a frightful ware gas), chloroacetophenone (another war gas), and an indigo and a yellow dye. [O]n the soda side we get metallic sodium, from which are derived sodium cyanide (a disinfectant), two medicines with [long] names, another war gas, and a beautiful violet dye. Thus, from a healthful, preservative condiment come things useful and hurtful—according to the intent or purpose.
Anonymous
The Homiletic Review, Vol. 83-84 (1922), Vol. 83, 209.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Both (496)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Chloroform (5)  |  Common (447)  |  Dye (10)  |  Gas (89)  |  Hurtful (8)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Name (359)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Phosgene (2)  |  Powder (9)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Salt (48)  |  Side (236)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  Violet (11)  |  War (233)  |  Water (503)  |  Yellow (31)

From the level of pragmatic, everyday knowledge to modern natural science, the knowledge of nature derives from man’s primary coming to grips with nature; at the same time it reacts back upon the system of social labour and stimulates its development.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Coming (114)  |  Derive (70)  |  Development (441)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Grip (10)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Level (69)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pragmatic (2)  |  React (7)  |  Same (166)  |  Social (261)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)

GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth's crust —to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones of mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  115.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Beer (10)  |  Bone (101)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Consist (223)  |  Crust (43)  |  Dog (70)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fool (121)  |  Formation (100)  |  Garbage (10)  |  Gas (89)  |  Geology (240)  |  Grass (49)  |  Humour (116)  |  Interior (35)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mole (5)  |  Patent (34)  |  Railway (19)  |  Rock (176)  |  Snake (29)  |  Snap (7)  |  Statue (17)  |  Strata (37)  |  Tool (129)  |  Track (42)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worm (47)

How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought … [The Phenomenon of Man] is written in an all but totally unintelligible style, and this is construed as prima-facie evidence of profundity.
Medawar’s book review of The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard de Chardin first appeared as 'Critical Notice' in the journal Mind (1961), 70, No. 277, 105. The book review was reprinted in The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967).
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Cheap (13)  |  Compulsory (8)  |  Construed (2)  |  Created (6)  |  Daily (91)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  Educated (12)  |  Education (423)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Large (398)  |  Literary (15)  |  Man (2252)  |  Market (23)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Population (115)  |  Prima Facie (2)  |  Profundity (6)  |  Scholarly (2)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Spread (86)  |  Style (24)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tertiary (4)  |  Thought (995)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Written (6)

I found the best ideas usually came, not when one was actively striving for them, but when one was in a more relaxed state… I used to take long solitary walks on Sundays, during which I tended to review the current situation in a leisurely way. Such occasions often proved fruitful, even though (or perhaps, because) the primary purpose of the walk was relaxation and not research.
'Methods in Theoretical Physics', From A Life of Physics: Evening Lectures at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. A Special Supplement of the IAEA Bulletin (1968), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Best (467)  |  Current (122)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Idea (881)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Research (753)  |  Review (27)  |  Situation (117)  |  State (505)  |  Tend (124)  |  Usually (176)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)

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)  |  Power (771)  |  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 want to note that, because there is the aforementioned difference between mountain and mountain, it will be appropriate, to avoid confusion, to distinguish one [type] from another by different terms; so I shall call the first Primary and the second Secondary.
From De’ Crostacei e degli altri Marini Corpi che si truovano su’ monti (1740), 263, as translated by Ezio Vaccari, from the original Italian, “Qui sol piacemi notare, che, giacchè tra monti e monti v’è l'accennata differenza, farà bene, per ischifar la confusione , distinguere gli uni dagli altri con differenti vocaboli; e perciò i primi Primarie, i secondi Secondarie monti per me si appelleranno.”
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Call (781)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  First (1302)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Type (171)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

In all disciplines in which there is systematic knowledge of things with principles, causes, or elements, it arises from a grasp of those: we think we have knowledge of a thing when we have found its primary causes and principles, and followed it back to its elements. Clearly, then, systematic knowledge of nature must start with an attempt to settle questions about principles.
Aristotle
In Physics Book 1, Chap 1, as translated in J.L. Ackrill, A New Aristotle Reader (1988), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Back (395)  |  Cause (561)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Element (322)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Settle (23)  |  Start (237)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)

In describing a protein it is now common to distinguish the primary, secondary and tertiary structures. The primary structure is simply the order, or sequence, of the amino-acid residues along the polypeptide chains. This was first determined by Sanger using chemical techniques for the protein insulin, and has since been elucidated for a number of peptides and, in part, for one or two other small proteins. The secondary structure is the type of folding, coiling or puckering adopted by the polypeptide chain: the a-helix structure and the pleated sheet are examples. Secondary structure has been assigned in broad outline to a number of librous proteins such as silk, keratin and collagen; but we are ignorant of the nature of the secondary structure of any globular protein. True, there is suggestive evidence, though as yet no proof, that a-helices occur in globular proteins, to an extent which is difficult to gauge quantitatively in any particular case. The tertiary structure is the way in which the folded or coiled polypeptide chains are disposed to form the protein molecule as a three-dimensional object, in space. The chemical and physical properties of a protein cannot be fully interpreted until all three levels of structure are understood, for these properties depend on the spatial relationships between the amino-acids, and these in turn depend on the tertiary and secondary structures as much as on the primary. Only X-ray diffraction methods seem capable, even in principle, of unravelling the tertiary and secondary structures.
Co-author with G. Bodo, H. M. Dintzis, R. G. Parrish, H. Wyckoff, and D. C. Phillips
'A Three-Dimensional Model of the Myoglobin Molecule Obtained by X-ray Analysis', Nature (1958) 181, 662.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Amino Acid (12)  |  Author (175)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Diffraction (5)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extent (142)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Helix (10)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Insulin (9)  |  Method (531)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Polypeptide (2)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Protein (56)  |  Ray (115)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Residue (9)  |  Frederick Sanger (6)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Silk (14)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Technique (84)  |  Three-Dimensional (11)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Understood (155)  |  Way (1214)  |  X-ray (43)  |  X-ray Diffraction (5)

In like manner, the loadstone has from nature its two poles, a northern and a southern; fixed, definite points in the stone, which are the primary termini of the movements and effects, and the limits and regulators of the several actions and properties. It is to be understood, however, that not from a mathematical point does the force of the stone emanate, but from the parts themselves; and all these parts in the whole—while they belong to the whole—the nearer they are to the poles of the stone the stronger virtues do they acquire and pour out on other bodies. These poles look toward the poles of the earth, and move toward them, and are subject to them. The magnetic poles may be found in very loadstone, whether strong and powerful (male, as the term was in antiquity) or faint, weak, and female; whether its shape is due to design or to chance, and whether it be long, or flat, or four-square, or three-cornered or polished; whether it be rough, broken-off, or unpolished: the loadstone ever has and ever shows its poles.
On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies and on the Great Magnet the Earth: A New Physiology, Demonstrated with many Arguments and Experiments (1600), trans. P. Fleury Mottelay (1893), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Belong (168)  |  Broken (56)  |  Chance (244)  |  Corner (59)  |  Definite (114)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Female (50)  |  Flat (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Limit (294)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Pole (49)  |  Polish (17)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Show (353)  |  Square (73)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Two (936)  |  Understood (155)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Weak (73)  |  Whole (756)

In science the primary duty of ideas is to be useful and interesting even more than to be “true.”
Lecture delivered to Anthropological Society of University College, London (25 Jan 1929). Published in 'The Functions of the Human Skull', Nature (6 Apr 1929), 123, No. 3101, 533-537. Collected in The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Duty (71)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interesting (153)  |  More (2558)  |  True (239)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Forever (111)  |  Hide (70)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lessen (6)  |  Lessening (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Objective (96)  |  Pride (84)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reality (274)  |  Relation (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

It is a matter of primary importance in the cultivation of those sciences in which truth is discoverable by the human intellect that the investigator should be free, independent, unshackled in his movement; that he should be allowed and enabled to fix his mind intently, nay, exclusively, on his special object, without the risk of being distracted every other minute in the process and progress of his inquiry by charges of temerariousness, or by warnings against extravagance or scandal.
In The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated (1905), 471.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Being (1276)  |  Charge (63)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distraction (7)  |  Education (423)  |  Extravagance (3)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Importance (299)  |  Independent (74)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Movement (162)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Risk (68)  |  Scandal (5)  |  Science And Society (25)  |  Special (188)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unshackled (2)  |  Warning (18)

It was a great step in science when men became convinced that, in order to understand the nature of things, they must begin by asking, not whether a thing is good or bad, noxious or beneficial, but of what kind it is? And how much is there of it? Quality and Quantity were then first recognised as the primary features to be observed in scientific inquiry.
'Address to the Mathematical and Physical Sections of the British Association, Liverpool, 15 Sep 1870', The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890 edition, reprint 2003), Vol. 2, 217.
Science quotes on:  |  Asking (74)  |  Bad (185)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beneficial (16)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Kind (564)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Observed (149)  |  Order (638)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Step (234)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

Lately we have been getting facts pointing to the “oceanic” nature of the floor of so-called inland seas. Through geological investigations it has been definitely established that in its deepest places, for instance, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the Earth’s crust is devoid of granite stratum. The same may be said quite confidently about the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Could the interpretation of these data be that inland seas were the primary stage of the formation of oceanic basins?
From 'O geologicheskom stroyenii i razvitii okeanicheskikh vpadm' (The Geological Structure and Development of Ocean Hollows ), News of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Geology Series (1955), 3, 3-18. As given in N. Zhirov, Atlantis: Atlantology: Basic Problems (2001), 139.
Science quotes on:  |  Basin (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Caribbean Sea (2)  |  Crust (43)  |  Data (162)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Floor (21)  |  Formation (100)  |  Geology (240)  |  Granite (8)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Gulf Of Mexico (5)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Mediterranean Sea (6)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Sea (326)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Stage (152)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Through (846)

Let us follow the natural order and begin with the primary facts.
Aristotle
In Ingram Bywater (trans.), Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry (1909), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Follow (389)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Order (6)  |  Order (638)

Let us now declare the means whereby our understanding can rise to knowledge without fear of error. There are two such means: intuition and deduction. By intuition I mean not the varying testimony of the senses, nor the deductive judgment of imagination naturally extravagant, but the conception of an attentive mind so distinct and so clear that no doubt remains to it with regard to that which it comprehends; or, what amounts to the same thing, the self-evidencing conception of a sound and attentive mind, a conception which springs from the light of reason alone, and is more certain, because more simple, than deduction itself. …
It may perhaps be asked why to intuition we add this other mode of knowing, by deduction, that is to say, the process which, from something of which we have certain knowledge, draws consequences which necessarily follow therefrom. But we are obliged to admit this second step; for there are a great many things which, without being evident of themselves, nevertheless bear the marks of certainty if only they are deduced from true and incontestable principles by a continuous and uninterrupted movement of thought, with distinct intuition of each thing; just as we know that the last link of a long chain holds to the first, although we can not take in with one glance of the eye the intermediate links, provided that, after having run over them in succession, we can recall them all, each as being joined to its fellows, from the first up to the last. Thus we distinguish intuition from deduction, inasmuch as in the latter case there is conceived a certain progress or succession, while it is not so in the former; … whence it follows that primary propositions, derived immediately from principles, may be said to be known, according to the way we view them, now by intuition, now by deduction; although the principles themselves can be known only by intuition, the remote consequences only by deduction.
In Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Philosophy of Descartes. [Torrey] (1892), 64-65.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Add (42)  |  Admit (49)  |  Alone (324)  |  Amount (153)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Case (102)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chain (51)  |  Clear (111)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Declare (48)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Derive (70)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Draw (140)  |  Error (339)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fellow (88)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Former (138)  |  Glance (36)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hold (96)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Inasmuch (5)  |  Incontestable (3)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Join (32)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Latter (21)  |  Let (64)  |  Light (635)  |  Link (48)  |  Long (778)  |  Mark (47)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Naturally (11)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Obliged (6)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Provide (79)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recall (11)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rise (169)  |  Run (158)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Second (66)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  Step (234)  |  Succession (80)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Therefrom (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  True (239)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Uninterrupted (7)  |  Vary (27)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whereby (2)  |  Why (491)

Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior.
My Autobiography (1964), 471.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Develop (278)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Ethics (53)  |  First (1302)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Man (2252)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Soul (235)  |  Survival (105)

Medicine, like every useful science, should be thrown open to the observation and study of all. It should, in fact, like law and every important science, be made part of the primary education of the people. … We should at once explode the whole machinery of mystification and concealment—wigs, gold canes, and the gibberish of prescriptions—which serves but as a cloak to ignorance and legalized murder.
Anonymous
Populist philosophy, of Samuel Thomson (1769-1843), founder of the Thomsonian System of medicine, as stated in New York Evening Star (27 Dec 1833)., as cited in the Thomsonian Recorder (17 Jan 1835), 3, 127. Quoted in Paul Starr The Social Transformation of American Medicine (1984), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Cloak (5)  |  Concealment (10)  |  Education (423)  |  Explode (15)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Gibberish (2)  |  Gold (101)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Law (913)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Observation (593)  |  Open (277)  |  People (1031)  |  Physician (284)  |  Prescription (18)  |  Study (701)  |  Useful (260)  |  Whole (756)

Nearly all the great inventions which distinguish the present century are the results, immediately or remotely, of the application of scientific principles to practical purposes, and in most cases these applications have been suggested by the student of nature, whose primary object was the discovery of abstract truth.
In 'Report of the Secretary', Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1859 (1860), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Application (257)  |  Century (319)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Great (1610)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Invention (400)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Object (438)  |  Practical (225)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Student (317)  |  Truth (1109)

Newton was probably responsible for the concept that there are seven primary colours in the spectrum—he had a strong interest in musical harmonies and, since there are seven distinct notes in the musical scale, he divided up the spectrum into spectral bands with widths corresponding to the ratios of the small whole numbers found in the just scale.
In 'Light and Colour', Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, Colour: Art & Science (1995), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Color (155)  |  Concept (242)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Divide (77)  |  Divided (50)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Interest (416)  |  Music (133)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Note (39)  |  Number (710)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seven (5)  |  Small (489)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Strong (182)  |  Whole (756)

On all levels primary, and secondary and undergraduate - mathematics is taught as an isolated subject with few, if any, ties to the real world. To students, mathematics appears to deal almost entirely with things whlch are of no concern at all to man.
In editorial in Focus, a Journal of the Mathematical Association of America (1986), quoted in obituary by Eric Pace, New York Times (11 Jun 1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Concern (239)  |  Deal (192)  |  Education (423)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Relevance (18)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tie (42)  |  Undergraduate (17)  |  World (1850)

One of the major goals when studying specific genetic diseases is to find the primary gene product, which in turn leads to a better understanding of the biochemical basis of the disorder. The bottom line often reads, 'This may lead to effective prenatal diagnosis and eventual eradication of the disease.' But we now have the ironic situation of being able to jump right to the bottom line without reading the rest of the page, that is, without needing to identify the primary gene product or the basic biochemical mechanism of the disease. The technical capability of doing this is now available. Since the degree of departure from our previous approaches and the potential of this procedure are so great, one will not be guilty of hyperbole in calling it the 'New Genetics'.
'Prenatal Diagnosis and the New Genetics', The American Journal of Human Genetics, 1980, 32:3, 453.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basis (180)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Capability (44)  |  Degree (277)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Disease (340)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Doing (277)  |  Effective (68)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Jump (31)  |  Lead (391)  |  Major (88)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  New (1273)  |  Potential (75)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Product (166)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Rest (287)  |  Right (473)  |  Situation (117)  |  Specific (98)  |  Studying (70)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

Philosophy would long ago have reached a high level if our predecessors and fathers had put this into practice; and we would not waste time on the primary difficulties, which appear now as severe as in the first centuries which noticed them. We would have the experience of assured phenomena, which would serve as principles for a solid reasoning; truth would not be so deeply sunken; nature would have taken off most of her envelopes; one would see the marvels she contains in all her individuals. ...
Les Préludes de l'Harmonie Universelle (1634), 135-139. In Charles Coulston Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974), Vol. 9, 316.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Century (319)  |  Contain (68)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Envelope (6)  |  Experience (494)  |  Father (113)  |  First (1302)  |  High (370)  |  Individual (420)  |  Long (778)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notice (81)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Practice (212)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  See (1094)  |  Severity (6)  |  Sinking (6)  |  Solid (119)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Waste (109)

Radioactivity is a new primary science owing allegiance neither to physics nor chemistry, as these sciences were understood before its advent, because it is concerned with a knowledge of the elementary atoms themselves of a character so fundamental and intimate that the old laws of physics and chemistry, concerned almost wholly with external relationships, do not suffice.
In 'The Discovery of Radioactivity: Radioactivity, a New Science', The Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom (4th ed., 1920), 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Advent (7)  |  Allegiance (5)  |  Atom (381)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Concern (239)  |  Elementary (98)  |  External (62)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Intimate (21)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Old (499)  |  Physics (564)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Understand (648)

Scientific modes of thought cannot be developed and become generally accepted unless people renounce their primary, unreflecting, and spontaneous attempt to understand all their experience in terms of its purpose and meaning for themselves. The development that led to more adequate knowledge and increasing control of nature was therefore, considered from one aspect, also a development toward greater self-control by men.
The Civilizing Process: The Development of Manners—Changes in the Code of Conduct and Feeling in Early Modern Times (1939), trans. Edmund Jephcott (1978), 225. Originally published as Über den Prozess der Zivilisation.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Consider (428)  |  Control (182)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Experience (494)  |  Greater (288)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  People (1031)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Renounce (6)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  Self (268)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)

Since many cases are known in which the specificities of antigens and enzymes appear to bear a direct relation to gene specificities, it seems reasonable to suppose that the gene’s primary and possibly sole function is in directing the final configurations of protein molecules.
Assuming that each specific protein of the organism has its unique configuration copied from that of a gene, it follows that every enzyme whose specificity depends on a protein should be subject to modification or inactivation through gene mutation. This would, of course, mean that the reaction normally catalyzed by the enzyme in question would either have its rate or products modified or be blocked entirely.
Such a view does not mean that genes directly “make” proteins. Regardless of precisely how proteins are synthesized, and from what component parts, these parts must themselves be synthesized by reactions which are enzymatically catalyzed and which in turn depend on the functioning of many genes. Thus in the synthesis of a single protein molecule, probably at least several hundred different genes contribute. But the final molecule corresponds to only one of them and this is the gene we visualize as being in primary control.
In 'Genetics and Metabolism in Neurospora', Physiological Reviews, 1945, 25, 660.
Science quotes on:  |  Antigen (5)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Component (51)  |  Control (182)  |  Course (413)  |  Depend (238)  |  Different (595)  |  Direct (228)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Final (121)  |  Follow (389)  |  Function (235)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Known (453)  |  Mean (810)  |  Modification (57)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Organism (231)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Product (166)  |  Protein (56)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Single (365)  |  Sole (50)  |  Specific (98)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unique (72)  |  View (496)

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
Yet, it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.
Address to the South London Working Men’s College. 'A Liberal Education; and Where to Find It', in David Masson, (ed.), Macmillan’s Magazine (Mar 1868), 17, 369. Also in 'A Liberal Education and Where to Find it' (1868). In Collected Essays (1893), Vol. 3, 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Allowance (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Check (26)  |  Checkmate (2)  |  Chess (27)  |  Chessboard (2)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cost (94)  |  Delight (111)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Disapprobation (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Eye (440)  |  Father (113)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Game (104)  |  Generosity (7)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Haste (6)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ill (12)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Knight (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Loss (117)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Member (42)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Move (223)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pawn (2)  |  Payment (6)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Player (9)  |  Remorse (9)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Son (25)  |  Stake (20)  |  State (505)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Win (53)  |  Winning (19)  |  Woman (160)  |  World (1850)

Suppose then I want to give myself a little training in the art of reasoning; suppose I want to get out of the region of conjecture and probability, free myself from the difficult task of weighing evidence, and putting instances together to arrive at general propositions, and simply desire to know how to deal with my general propositions when I get them, and how to deduce right inferences from them; it is clear that I shall obtain this sort of discipline best in those departments of thought in which the first principles are unquestionably true. For in all our thinking, if we come to erroneous conclusions, we come to them either by accepting false premises to start with—in which case our reasoning, however good, will not save us from error; or by reasoning badly, in which case the data we start from may be perfectly sound, and yet our conclusions may be false. But in the mathematical or pure sciences,—geometry, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, the calculus of variations or of curves,— we know at least that there is not, and cannot be, error in our first principles, and we may therefore fasten our whole attention upon the processes. As mere exercises in logic, therefore, these sciences, based as they all are on primary truths relating to space and number, have always been supposed to furnish the most exact discipline. When Plato wrote over the portal of his school. “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” he did not mean that questions relating to lines and surfaces would be discussed by his disciples. On the contrary, the topics to which he directed their attention were some of the deepest problems,— social, political, moral,—on which the mind could exercise itself. Plato and his followers tried to think out together conclusions respecting the being, the duty, and the destiny of man, and the relation in which he stood to the gods and to the unseen world. What had geometry to do with these things? Simply this: That a man whose mind has not undergone a rigorous training in systematic thinking, and in the art of drawing legitimate inferences from premises, was unfitted to enter on the discussion of these high topics; and that the sort of logical discipline which he needed was most likely to be obtained from geometry—the only mathematical science which in Plato’s time had been formulated and reduced to a system. And we in this country [England] have long acted on the same principle. Our future lawyers, clergy, and statesmen are expected at the University to learn a good deal about curves, and angles, and numbers and proportions; not because these subjects have the smallest relation to the needs of their lives, but because in the very act of learning them they are likely to acquire that habit of steadfast and accurate thinking, which is indispensable to success in all the pursuits of life.
In Lectures on Teaching (1906), 891-92.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Acquire (46)  |  Act (278)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Angle (25)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Art (680)  |  Attention (196)  |  Badly (32)  |  Base (120)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Case (102)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clergy (4)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Country (269)  |  Curve (49)  |  Data (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deep (241)  |  Department (93)  |  Desire (212)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disciple (8)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Duty (71)  |  England (43)  |  Enter (145)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exact (75)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Expect (203)  |  False (105)  |  First (1302)  |  Follower (11)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Free (239)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Habit (174)  |  High (370)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Inference (45)  |  Instance (33)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Least (75)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likely (36)  |  Line (100)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Need (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Plato (80)  |  Political (124)  |  Portal (9)  |  Premise (40)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Region (40)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Respect (212)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Same (166)  |  Save (126)  |  School (227)  |  Simply (53)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Sort (50)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Start (237)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Steadfast (4)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Surface (223)  |  System (545)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Task (152)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Topic (23)  |  Training (92)  |  Trigonometry (7)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Unfitted (3)  |  University (130)  |  Unquestionably (3)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Variation (93)  |  Want (504)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

Television will enormously enlarge the eye's range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote.
In 'Removal' (Jul 1938), collected in One Man's Meat (1942), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Elsewhere (10)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Eye (440)  |  Favor (69)  |  Forget (125)  |  Insist (22)  |   Magazine (26)  |  Movie (21)  |  Radio (60)  |  Range (104)  |  Remote (86)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Tabloid (2)  |  Television (33)  |  Together (392)  |  Will (2350)

The Ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies, are Resemblances of them, and their Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves; but the Ideas, produced in us by these Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our Ideas, existing in the Bodies themselves. They are in Bodies, we denominate from them, only a Power to produce those Sensations in us: And what is Sweet, Blue or Warm in Idea, is but the certain Bulk, Figure, and Motion of the insensible parts in the Bodies themselves, which we call so.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 2, Chapter 8, Section 15, 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Bulk (24)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Figure (162)  |  Idea (881)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Power (771)  |  Produced (187)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Warm (74)

The Qualities then that are in Bodies rightly considered, are of Three sorts.
First, the Bulk, Figure, Number, Situation, and Motion, or Rest of their solid Parts; those are in them, whether we perceive them or no; and when they are of that size, that we can discover them, we have by these an Idea of the thing, as it is in it self, as is plain in artificial things. These I call primary Qualities.
Secondly, The Power that is in any Body, by Reason of its insensible primary Qualities, to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our Senses, and thereby produce in us the different Ideas of several Colours, Sounds, Smells, Tastes, etc. These are usually called sensible Qualities.
Thirdly, The Power that is in any Body, by Reason of the particular Constitution of its primary Qualities, to make such a change in the Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion of another Body, as to make it operate on our Senses, differently from what it did before. Thus the Sun has a Power to make Wax white, and Fire to make Lead fluid. These are usually called Powers.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 2, Chapter 8, Section 23, 140-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Figure (162)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lead (391)  |  Motion (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Situation (117)  |  Smell (29)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sun (407)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Usually (176)  |  Wax (13)  |  White (132)

The aim of science is, on the one hand, as complete a comprehension as possible of the connection between perceptible experiences in their totality, and, on the other hand, the achievement of this aim by employing a minimum of primary concepts and relations.
H. Cuny, Albert Einstein: The Man and his Theories (1963), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Aim (175)  |  Complete (209)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Concept (242)  |  Connection (171)  |  Experience (494)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Totality (17)

The carbon output that melts the ice in the Arctic also causes ocean acidification, which results from the ocean absorbing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (the same carbon dioxide that is the primary cause of global warming, hence the nickname “the other carbon problem”).
In 'What do the Arctic, a Thermostat and COP15 Have in Common?', Huffington Post (18 Mar 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Acidification (4)  |  Arctic (10)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Cause (561)  |  Excess (23)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Ice (58)  |  Melt (16)  |  Nickname (3)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Output (12)  |  Problem (731)  |  Result (700)  |  Warming (24)

The greater the mind, the greater are the truths self-evident to it, and the greater also is its power to induce complex from simple truths—complex truths of which we may be as certain as we are of the primary self-evident truths themselves.
In The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language (1910), x.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Complex (202)  |  Induction (81)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Power (771)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Simple (426)  |  Truth (1109)

The idealistic tinge in my conception of the physical world arose out of mathematical researches on the relativity theory. In so far as I had any earlier philosophical views, they were of an entirely different complexion.
From the beginning I have been doubtful whether it was desirable for a scientist to venture so far into extra-scientific territory. The primary justification for such an expedition is that it may afford a better view of his own scientific domain.
From 'Introduction', The Nature of the Physical World (1928), vi.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Better (493)  |  Conception (160)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Different (595)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Expedition (9)  |  Justification (52)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Territory (25)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

The invention of what we may call primary or fundamental notation has been but little indebted to analogy, evidently owing to the small extent of ideas in which comparison can be made useful. But at the same time analogy should be attended to, even if for no other reason than that, by making the invention of notation an art, the exertion of individual caprice ceases to be allowable. Nothing is more easy than the invention of notation, and nothing of worse example and consequence than the confusion of mathematical expressions by unknown symbols. If new notation be advisable, permanently or temporarily, it should carry with it some mark of distinction from that which is already in use, unless it be a demonstrable extension of the latter.
In 'Calculus of Functions', Encyclopaedia of Pure Mathematics (1847), Addition to Article 26, 388.
Science quotes on:  |  Allowable (2)  |  Already (226)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Art (680)  |  Attend (67)  |  Call (781)  |  Caprice (10)  |  Carry (130)  |  Cease (81)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Easy (213)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Example (98)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extension (60)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Notation (28)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owing (39)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Reason (766)  |  Same (166)  |  Small (489)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Worse (25)

The most important and urgent problems of the technology of today are no longer the satisfactions of the primary needs or of archetypal wishes, but the reparation of the evils and damages by technology of yesterday.
Innovations: Scientific Technological and Social (1970), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Archetype (5)  |  Damage (38)  |  Evil (122)  |  Importance (299)  |  Most (1728)  |  Need (320)  |  Problem (731)  |  Repair (11)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Technology (281)  |  Today (321)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Wish (216)  |  Yesterday (37)

The oceans are the life support system of this planet, providing us with up to 70 percent of our oxygen, as well as a primary source of protein for billions of people, not to mention the regulation of our climate.
In 'Why Exploring the Ocean is Mankind’s Next Giant Leap', contributed to CNN 'Lightyears Blog' (13 Mar 2012).
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Climate (102)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mention (84)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Protein (56)  |  Provide (79)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Source (101)  |  Support (151)  |  System (545)

The philosophy that I have worked under most of my life is that the serious study of natural history is an activity which has far-reaching effects in every aspect of a person’s life. It ultimately makes people protective of the environment in a very committed way. It is my opinion that the study of natural history should be the primary avenue for creating environmentalists.
As quoted in William V. Mealy, Peter Friederici and Roger Tory Peterson Institute, Value in American Wildlife Art: Proceedings of the 1992 Forum (1992), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Avenue (14)  |  Committed (2)  |  Create (245)  |  Effect (414)  |  Environment (239)  |  Environmentalist (7)  |  Far-Reaching (9)  |  History (716)  |  Life (1870)  |  Make (25)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Opinion (291)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Protective (5)  |  Serious (98)  |  Study (701)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The physics of undergraduate text-books is 90% true; the contents of the primary research journals of physics is 90% false.
In Reliable Knowledge: An Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in Science (1978, 1991), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Journal (31)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Research (753)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undergraduate (17)

The primary aim, object, and purpose of consciousness is control. Consciousness in a mere automaton is a useless and unnecessary epiphenomenon.
An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1894), 182.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Control (182)  |  Epiphenomenon (3)  |  Object (438)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Uselessness (22)

The primary rocks, … I regard as the deposits of a period in which the earth’s crust had sufficiently cooled down to permit the existence of a sea, with the necessary denuding agencies,—waves and currents,—and, in consequence, of deposition also; but in which the internal heat acted so near the surface, that whatever was deposited came, matter of course, to be metamorphosed into semi-plutonic forms, that retained only the stratification. I dare not speak of the scenery of the period. We may imagine, however, a dark atmosphere of steam and vapour, which for age after age conceals the face of the sun, and through which the light of moon or star never penetrates; oceans of thermal water heated in a thousand centres to the boiling point; low, half-molten islands, dim through the log, and scarce more fixed than the waves themselves, that heave and tremble under the impulsions of the igneous agencies; roaring geysers, that ever and anon throw up their intermittent jets of boiling fluid, vapour, and thick steam, from these tremulous lands; and, in the dim outskirts of the scene, the red gleam of fire, shot forth from yawning cracks and deep chasms, and that bears aloft fragments of molten rock and clouds of ashes. But should we continue to linger amid a scene so featureless and wild, or venture adown some yawning opening into the abyss beneath, where all is fiery and yet dark,—a solitary hell, without suffering or sin,—we would do well to commit ourselves to the guidance of a living poet of the true faculty,—Thomas Aird and see with his eyes.
Lecture Sixth, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 297-298.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  Ash (21)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Commit (43)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Crack (15)  |  Crust (43)  |  Current (122)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deposition (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Existence (481)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hell (32)  |  Igneous (3)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Internal (69)  |  Island (49)  |  Light (635)  |  Linger (14)  |  Living (492)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metamorphosis (5)  |  Molten (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Period (200)  |  Permit (61)  |  Poet (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Regard (312)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sin (45)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Speak (240)  |  Star (460)  |  Steam (81)  |  Stratification (2)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wild (96)

The ridge of the Lammer-muir hills... consists of primary micaceous schistus, and extends from St Abb's head westward... The sea-coast affords a transverse section of this alpine tract at its eastern extremity, and exhibits the change from the primary to the secondary strata... Dr HUTTON wished particularly to examine the latter of these, and on this occasion Sir JAMES HALL and I had the pleasure to accompany him. We sailed in a boat from Dunglass ... We made for a high rocky point or head-land, the SICCAR ... On landing at this point, we found that we actually trode [sic] on the primeval rock... It is here a micaceous schistus, in beds nearly vertical, highly indurated, and stretching from S.E. to N. W. The surface of this rock... has thin covering of red horizontal sandstone laid over it, ... Here, therefore, the immediate contact of the two rocks is not only visible, but is curiously dissected and laid open by the action of the waves... On us who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression will not easily be forgotten. The palpable evidence presented to us, of one of the most extraordinary and important facts in the natural history of the earth, gave a reality and substance to those theoretical speculations, which, however probable had never till now been directly authenticated by the testimony of the senses... What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? ... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.
'Biographical Account of the Late Dr James Hutton, F.R.S. Edin.' (read 1803), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1805), 5, 71-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Accompany (22)  |  Action (342)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Change (639)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contact (66)  |  Covering (14)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Earnestness (3)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examine (84)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Formation (100)  |  Grow (247)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  James Hutton (22)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impression (118)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sandstone (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wonderful (155)

The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with facts for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life. What would we not give to make it possible for us to steal a look at a book that will serve primary schools in a hundred years?
In Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse (1846), Preface, 13. From the original French, “Le simple écolier sait maintenant des vérités pour lesquelles Archimède eût sacrifié sa vie. Que ne donnerions-nous pas pour qu’il nous fût possible de jeter un coup d’œil furtif sur tel livre qui servira aux écoles primaires dans cent ans?”
Science quotes on:  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Book (413)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Give (208)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Primary School (2)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  School (227)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  Serve (64)  |  Simple (426)  |  Steal (14)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

The University of Cambridge, in accordance with that law of its evolution, by which, while maintaining the strictest continuity between the successive phases of its history, it adapts itself with more or less promptness to the requirements of the times, has lately instituted a course of Experimental Physics.
'Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics', (1871). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 241.Course;Experiment;Cambridge;History;Promptness;Adapt;Requirement
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Course (413)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Feature (49)  |  History (716)  |  Law (913)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Phase (37)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Promptness (2)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Strict (20)  |  Successive (73)  |  Time (1911)  |  University (130)

The worst primary school scolding I ever received was for ridiculing a classmate who asked, ‘What’s an atom?’ To my third grader’s mind, the question betrayed a level of ignorance more befitting a preschooler, but the teacher disagreed and banned me from recess for a week. I had forgotten the incident until a few years ago, while sitting in on a quantum mechanics class taught by a Nobel Prizewinning physicist. Midway through a brutally abstract lecture on the hydrogen atom, a plucky sophomore raised his hand and asked the very same question. To the astonishment of all, our speaker fell silent. He stared out the window for what seemed like an eternity before answering, ‘I don’t know.’
'The Secret Life of Atoms'. Discover (Jun 2007), 28:6, 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bad (185)  |  Ban (9)  |  Betray (8)  |  Class (168)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Disagreed (4)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fall (243)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Incident (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Level (69)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Midway (4)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Question (649)  |  Raise (38)  |  Receive (117)  |  Recess (8)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Same (166)  |  School (227)  |  Scold (6)  |  Seem (150)  |  Silent (31)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Speaker (6)  |  Star (460)  |  Stare (9)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Third (17)  |  Through (846)  |  Week (73)  |  Window (59)  |  Worst (57)  |  Year (963)

There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we come to those which are primary.
The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings (1714), trans. Robert Latta (1898), 235-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Contingent (12)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Kind (564)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Simple (426)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

There is no kind of material, no body, and no thing that can be produced or conceived of, which is not made up of elementary particles; and nature does not admit of a truthful exploration in accordance with the doctrines of the physicists without an accurate demonstration of the primary causes of things, showing how and why they are as they are.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 2, Chap 1, Sec. 9. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Atom (381)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Kind (564)  |  Material (366)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Produced (187)  |  Research (753)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Why (491)

Through most of his existence man’s survival depended on his ability to cope with nature. If the mind evolved as an aid in human survival it was primarily as an instrument for the mastery of nature. The mind is still at its best when tinkering with the mathematics that rule nature.
In Before the Sabbath (1979), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Aid (101)  |  Best (467)  |  Cope (9)  |  Depend (238)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Human (1512)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Rule (307)  |  Still (614)  |  Survival (105)  |  Through (846)  |  Tinker (6)  |  Tinkering (6)

Thus we conclude, that the strata both primary and secondary, both those of ancient and those of more recent origin, have had their materials furnished from the ruins of former continents, from the dissolution of rocks, or the destruction of animal or vegetable bodies, similar, at least in some respects, to those that now occupy the surface of the earth.
Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), 14-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Animal (651)  |  Both (496)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Continent (79)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Former (138)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Furnishing (4)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Origin (250)  |  Recent (78)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rock (176)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Vegetable (49)

To this day, we see all around us the Promethean drive to omnipotence through technology and to omniscience through science. The effecting of all things possible and the knowledge of all causes are the respective primary imperatives of technology and of science. But the motivating imperative of society continues to be the very different one of its physical and spiritual survival. It is now far less obvious than it was in Francis Bacon's world how to bring the three imperatives into harmony, and how to bring all three together to bear on problems where they superpose.
In 'Science, Technology and the Fourth Discontinuity' (1982). Reprinted in The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens (1986), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Bear (162)  |  Cause (561)  |  Continue (179)  |  Different (595)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Imperative (16)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Omnipotence (4)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  See (1094)  |  Society (350)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Survival (105)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  World (1850)

Very few people, including authors willing to commit to paper, ever really read primary sources–certainly not in necessary depth and contemplation, and often not at all ... When writers close themselves off to the documents of scholarship, and then rely only on seeing or asking, they become conduits and sieves rather than thinkers. When, on the other hand, you study the great works of predecessors engaged in the same struggle, you enter a dialogue with human history and the rich variety of our own intellectual traditions. You insert yourself, and your own organizing powers, into this history–and you become an active agent, not merely a ‘reporter.’
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Agent (73)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Author (175)  |  Become (821)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Close (77)  |  Commit (43)  |  Conduit (3)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Depth (97)  |  Dialogue (10)  |  Document (7)  |  Engage (41)  |  Enter (145)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Include (93)  |  Insert (4)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Merely (315)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Often (109)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Organize (33)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Read (308)  |  Really (77)  |  Rely (12)  |  Reporter (5)  |  Rich (66)  |  Same (166)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sieve (3)  |  Source (101)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Study (701)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Variety (138)  |  Willing (44)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. Intuition tells us that that is true also of our fellows and of the higher animals. We all try to escape pain and death, while we seek what is pleasant. We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race. Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual’s instinct for self preservation. At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on. All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions. All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease stirring within us. Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us. The most evident difference springs from the important part which is played in man by a relatively strong power of imagination and by the capacity to think, aided as it is by language and other symbolical devices. Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions. In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of servants of the primary instincts. But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Aid (101)  |  Alike (60)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Causal (7)  |  Cease (81)  |  Claim (154)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Death (406)  |  Describe (132)  |  Desire (212)  |  Device (71)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elemental (4)  |  Enter (145)  |  Escape (85)  |  Evident (92)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Factor (47)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Hate (68)  |  High (370)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Important (229)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intersect (5)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Less (105)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Need (320)  |  Organize (33)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pain (144)  |  Part (235)  |  Pity (16)  |  Play (116)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Pride (84)  |  Race (278)  |  Relation (166)  |  Relatively (8)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Same (166)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seem (150)  |  Self (268)  |  Servant (40)  |  Serve (64)  |  Social (261)  |  Spring (140)  |  Stir (23)  |  Strong (182)  |  Symbolic (16)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Tell (344)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  True (239)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

We live in a capitalist economy, and I have no particular objection to honorable self-interest. We cannot hope to make the needed, drastic improvement in primary and secondary education without a dramatic restructuring of salaries. In my opinion, you cannot pay a good teacher enough money to recompense the value of talent applied to the education of young children. I teach an hour or two a day to tolerably well-behaved near-adults–and I come home exhausted. By what possible argument are my services worth more in salary than those of a secondary-school teacher with six classes a day, little prestige, less support, massive problems of discipline, and a fundamental role in shaping minds. (In comparison, I only tinker with intellects already largely formed.)
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Argument (145)  |  Capitalist (6)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Class (168)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Drastic (3)  |  Economy (59)  |  Education (423)  |  Enough (341)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  Home (184)  |  Honorable (14)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hour (192)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Interest (416)  |  Largely (14)  |  Less (105)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Massive (9)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Money (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Objection (34)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Particular (80)  |  Pay (45)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Problem (731)  |  Recompense (2)  |  Restructuring (2)  |  Role (86)  |  Salary (8)  |  School (227)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Secondary School (4)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Interest (3)  |  Service (110)  |  Shape (77)  |  Support (151)  |  Talent (99)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Tinker (6)  |  Two (936)  |  Value (393)  |  Worth (172)  |  Young (253)

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)  |  Primarily (12)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Requisite (12)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Right (473)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thought (995)  |  Will (2350)

We should admit in theory what is already very largely a case in practice, that the main currency of scientific information is the secondary sources in the forms of abstracts, reports, tables, &c., and that the primary sources are only for detailed reference by very few people. It is possible that the fate of most scientific papers will be not to be read by anyone who uses them, but with luck they will furnish an item, a number, some facts or data to such reports which may, but usually will not, lead to the original paper being consulted. This is very sad but it is the inevitable consequence of the growth of science. The number of papers that can be consulted is absolutely limited, no more time can be spent in looking up papers, by and large, than in the past. As the number of papers increase the chance of any one paper being looked at is correspondingly diminished. This of course is only an average, some papers may be looked at by thousands of people and may become a regular and fixed part of science but most will perish unseen.
'The Supply of Information to the Scientist: Some Problems of the Present Day', The Journal of Documentation, 1957, 13, 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Already (226)  |  Average (89)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chance (244)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Data (162)  |  Detail (150)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fate (76)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Growth (200)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Information (173)  |  Large (398)  |  Lead (391)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Luck (44)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Paper (192)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Perish (56)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practice (212)  |  Publication (102)  |  Read (308)  |  Regular (48)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spent (85)  |  Table (105)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

What about the magical number seven? What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week? What about the seven-point rating scale, the seven categories for absolute judgment, the seven objects in the span of attention, and the seven digits in the span of immediate memory? For the present I propose to withhold judgment. Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all these sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence.
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (1956), 42-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behind (139)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Color (155)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Deep (241)  |  Discover (571)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Magic (92)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Pernicious (9)  |  Pleiades (4)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Profound (105)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seven (5)  |  Sin (45)  |  Something (718)  |  Week (73)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

What attracted me to immunology was that the whole thing seemed to revolve around a very simple experiment: take two different antibody molecules and compare their primary sequences. The secret of antibody diversity would emerge from that. Fortunately at the time I was sufficiently ignorant of the subject not to realise how naive I was being.
From Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1984), collected in Tore Frängsmyr and Jan Lindsten (eds.), Nobel Lectures in Physiology Or Medicine: 1981-1990 (1993), 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Antibody (6)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Being (1276)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Different (595)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fortunately (9)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Naive (13)  |  Realisation (4)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)

Whatever may happen to the latest theory of Dr. Einstein, his treatise represents a mathematical effort of overwhelming proportions. It is the more remarkable since Einstein is primarily a physicist and only incidentally a mathematician. He came to mathematics rather of necessity than by predilection, and yet he has here developed mathematical formulae and calculations springing from a colossal knowledge.
In 'Marvels at Einstein For His Mathematics', New York Times (4 Feb 1929), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Colossal (15)  |  Develop (278)  |  Effort (243)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Formula (102)  |  Happen (282)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Predilection (4)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Represent (157)  |  Spring (140)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Whatever (234)

When puzzled, it never hurts to read the primary documents–a rather simple and self-evident principle that has, nonetheless, completely disappeared from large sectors of the American experience.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Completely (137)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Document (7)  |  Evident (92)  |  Experience (494)  |  Hurt (14)  |  Large (398)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nonetheless (2)  |  Principle (530)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Read (308)  |  Sector (7)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Simple (426)

When science makes minor mysteries disappear, greater mysteries stand confessed. For one object of delight whose emotional value science has inevitably lessened—as Newton damaged the rainbow for Keats—science gives back double. To the grand primary impressions of the world­power, the immensities, the pervading order, and the universal flux, with which the man of feeling has been nurtured from of old, modern science has added thrilling impressions of manifoldness, intricacy, uniformity, inter-relatedness, and evolution. Science widens and clears the emotional window. There are great vistas to which science alone can lead, and they make for elevation of mind. The opposition between science and feeling is largely a misunderstanding. As one of our philosophers has remarked, science is in a true sense 'one of the humanities.'
J. Arthur Thomson (ed.), The Outline of Science: A Plain Story Simply Told (1921/2), Vol. 2, Science and Modern Thought, 787.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Back (395)  |  Confess (42)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Flux (21)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Humanities (21)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inter (12)  |  Intricacy (8)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Misunderstanding (13)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Order (638)  |  Pervading (7)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Power (771)  |  Rainbow (17)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stand (284)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Universal (198)  |  Value (393)  |  Vista (12)  |  Widen (10)  |  Window (59)  |  World (1850)

When we talk mathematics, we may be discussing a secondary language built on the primary language of the nervous system.
As quoted in John C. Oxtoby and B. J. Pettis (eds.), 'John von Neumann, 1903-1957', Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (May 1958), 64, No. 3, Part 2, 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Secondary (15)  |  System (545)  |  Talk (108)

Yet I also appreciate that we cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well–for we will not fight to save what we do not love (but only appreciate in some abstract sense). So let them all continue–the films, the books, the television programs, the zoos, the little half acre of ecological preserve in any community, the primary school lessons, the museum demonstrations, even ... the 6:00 A.M. bird walks. Let them continue and expand because we must have visceral contact in order to love. We really must make room for nature in our hearts.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Acre (13)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Battle (36)  |  Bird (163)  |  Bond (46)  |  Book (413)  |  Community (111)  |  Contact (66)  |  Continue (179)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ecological (7)  |  Emotional (17)  |  Environment (239)  |  Expand (56)  |  Fight (49)  |  Film (12)  |  Forge (10)  |  Half (63)  |  Heart (243)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Let (64)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  Museum (40)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Program (57)  |  Really (77)  |  Room (42)  |  Save (126)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  Television (33)  |  Visceral (3)  |  Walk (138)  |  Will (2350)  |  Win (53)  |  Zoo (9)

Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of ‘lower’ animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Argument (145)  |  Arise (162)  |  Basis (180)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Behavior (10)  |  Low (86)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Product (166)  |  Rest (287)  |  Selection (130)  |  Similar (36)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sociobiology (5)  |  System (545)  |  View (496)


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.