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: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Primitive

Primitive Quotes (79 quotes)

[In the Royal Society, there] has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits, or Scholars.
The History of the Royal Society (1667), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Amplification (3)  |  Back (395)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Constant (148)  |  Countryman (4)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Digression (3)  |  Easiness (4)  |  Expression (181)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Member (42)  |  Merchant (7)  |  Native (41)  |  Natural (810)  |  Number (710)  |  Plainness (2)  |  Positive (98)  |  Purity (15)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Return (133)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Sense (785)  |  Society (350)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Style (24)  |  Swelling (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wit (61)  |  Word (650)

[The] second fundamental rule of historical science may be thus simply expressed:—we should not wish to explain every thing. Historical tradition must never be abandoned in the philosophy of history—otherwise we lose all firm ground and footing. But historical tradition, ever so accurately conceived and carefully sifted, doth not always, especially in the early and primitive ages, bring with it a full and demonstrative certainty.
In Friedrich von Schlegel and James Burton Robertson (trans.), The Philosophy of History (1835), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Age (509)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Early (196)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Express (192)  |  Firm (47)  |  Footing (2)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Ground (222)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Lose (165)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Rule (307)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Wish (216)

[Zoophytes (Protists, or simple life forms) are] the primitive types from which all the organisms of the higher classes had arisen by gradual development.
Entry for Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus in Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), Vol. 27, 255-256.
Science quotes on:  |  Class (168)  |  Definition (238)  |  Development (441)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Higher (37)  |  Life (1870)  |  Organism (231)  |  Protist (3)  |  Simple (426)  |  Type (171)  |  Zoophyte (5)

A slave world is not worth preserving. Better be lifeless like the cold moon, or primitively vegetal like desolate Mars, than be a planet populated by social robots.
From speech (Oct 1947), 'Peace or Pieces: or Who Amends the Golden Rule'. As reprinted in Henry Goddard Leach (ed.), The American-Scandinavian Review (1950), 37-38, 34. As quoted in 'Dr. Harlow Shapley Dies at 86; Dean of American Astronomers', New York Times (21 Oct 1972), 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Cold (115)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Mars (47)  |  Moon (252)  |  Planet (402)  |  Populate (4)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Robot (14)  |  Slave (40)  |  Social (261)  |  Vegetal (2)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon’s time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts. This is incontestable, in our present advanced stage; but, if we look back to the primitive stage of human knowledge, we shall see that it must have been otherwise then. If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them.
The Positive Philosophy, trans. Harriet Martineau (1853), Vol. 1, 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Equally (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fruitless (9)  |  Good (906)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Look (584)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observed (149)  |  Present (630)  |  Retain (57)  |  See (1094)  |  Stage (152)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)

And this is the ultimate lesson that our knowledge of the mode of transmission of typhus has taught us: Man carries on his skin a parasite, the louse. Civilization rids him of it. Should man regress, should he allow himself to resemble a primitive beast, the louse begins to multiply again and treats man as he deserves, as a brute beast. This conclusion would have endeared itself to the warm heart of Alfred Nobel. My contribution to it makes me feel less unworthy of the honour which you have conferred upon me in his name.
'Investigations on Typhus', Nobel Lecture, 1928. In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941 (1965), 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Beast (58)  |  Begin (275)  |  Brute (30)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Feel (371)  |  Heart (243)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honour (58)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Louse (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mode (43)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Name (359)  |  Alfred Bernhard Nobel (17)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Regression (2)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Skin (48)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Typhus (2)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unworthy (18)  |  Warm (74)

And, to prevent mistakes, I must advertize you, that I now mean by elements, as those chymists that speak plainest do by their principles, certain primitive or simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies; which not being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the ingredients of which all those called perfectly mixt bodies are immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately resolved: now whether there be any such body to be constantly met with in all, and each, of those that are said to be elemented bodies, is the thing I now question.
The Sceptical Chemist (2nd ed., 1661), Appendix, 354. As given in Henry M. Leicester and Herbert S. Klickstein, A Source Book in Chemistry 1400-1900 (1952), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Compound (117)  |  Definition (238)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Simple (426)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Ultimately (56)

Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists though their fieldwork among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.
From Arthur D. Little Lecture (6 Dec 1963) at the London School of Economics, in Saturday Review (1963), 46, No. 4, 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropologist (8)  |  Connect (126)  |  Fieldwork (5)  |  Forget (125)  |  Language (308)  |  Link (48)  |  Often (109)  |  People (1031)  |  Poet (97)  |  Scientist (881)

Anthropology has reached that point of development where the careful investigation of facts shakes our firm belief in the far-reaching theories that have been built up. The complexity of each phenomenon dawns on our minds, and makes us desirous of proceeding more cautiously. Heretofore we have seen the features common to all human thought. Now we begin to see their differences. We recognize that these are no less important than their similarities, and the value of detailed studies becomes apparent. Our aim has not changed, but our method must change. We are still searching for the laws that govern the growth of human culture, of human thought; but we recognize the fact that before we seek for what is common to all culture, we must analyze each culture by careful and exact methods, as the geologist analyzes the succession and order of deposits, as the biologist examines the forms of living matter. We see that the growth of human culture manifests itself in the growth of each special culture. Thus we have come to understand that before we can build up the theory of the growth of all human culture, we must know the growth of cultures that we find here and there among the most primitive tribes of the Arctic, of the deserts of Australia, and of the impenetrable forests of South America; and the progress of the civilization of antiquity and of our own times. We must, so far as we can, reconstruct the actual history of mankind, before we can hope to discover the laws underlying that history.
The Jesup North Pacific Expedition: Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History (1898), Vol. 1, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Aim (175)  |  America (143)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Arctic (10)  |  Australia (11)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Build (211)  |  Change (639)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Common (447)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Culture (157)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Desert (59)  |  Desirous (2)  |  Detail (150)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Firm (47)  |  Forest (161)  |  Form (976)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Govern (66)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mankind (15)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Culture (10)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Living (492)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Point (584)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognize (136)  |  See (1094)  |  Seek (218)  |  Shake (43)  |  South (39)  |  South America (6)  |  Special (188)  |  Still (614)  |  Succession (80)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Understand (648)  |  Value (393)

As an antiquary of a new order, I have been obliged to learn the art of deciphering and restoring these remains, of discovering and bringing together, in their primitive arrangement, the scattered and mutilated fragments of which they are composed, of reproducing in all their original proportions and characters, the animals to which these fragments formerly belonged, and then of comparing them with those animals which still live on the surface of the earth; an art which is almost unknown, and which presupposes, what had scarcely been obtained before, an acquaintance with those laws which regulate the coexistence of the forms by which the different parts of organized being are distinguished.
'Preliminary discourse', to Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles (1812), trans. R. Kerr Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antiquary (4)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Character (259)  |  Classification (102)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Order (638)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Still (614)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Together (392)  |  Unknown (195)

As I have already mentioned, wherever cells are formed, this tough fluid precedes the first solid structures that indicate the presence of future cells. Moreover, we must assume that this substance furnishes the material for the formation of the nucleus and of the primitive sac, not only because these structures are closely apposed to it, but also because,they react to iodine in the same way. We must assume also that the organization of this substance is the process that inaugurates the formation of new cells. It therefore seems justifiable for me to propose a name that refers to its physiological function: I propose the word protoplasma.
H. Mohl, Botanisch Zeitung (1846), 4, col. 73, trans. Henry Harris, The Birth of the Cell (1999), 75.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Cell (146)  |  First (1302)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Function (235)  |  Future (467)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Iodine (7)  |  Material (366)  |  Mention (84)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Organization (120)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Presence (63)  |  Process (439)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Solid (119)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Tough (22)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Word (650)

At the present time the fishing industry is, in some ways, at the stage at which primitive man was many centuries ago—we hunt the fish that Nature provides, just as our ancestors hunted animals for food. We have not yet begun to herd fish or to improve their quality—but one day we shall be forced to farm the seas as we do the land.
In 'Man Explores the Sea', Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (Sep 1963), 111, No. 5086, 787.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aquaculture (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Farm (28)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fishing (20)  |  Food (213)  |  Herd (17)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Industry (159)  |  Land (131)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Present (630)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Quality (139)  |  Sea (326)  |  Stage (152)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

But Geology carries the day: it is like the pleasure of gambling, speculating, on first arriving, what the rocks may be; I often mentally cry out 3 to 1 Tertiary against primitive; but the latter have hitherto won all the bets.
Letter to W. D. Fox, May 1832. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1821-1836 (1985), Vol. 1, 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Bet (13)  |  Cry (30)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Rock (176)

But the Presidence of that mighty Power … its particular Agency and Concern therein: and its Purpose and Design … will more evidently appear, when I shall have proved … That the said Earth, though not indifferently and alike fertil in all parts of it, was yet generally much more fertil than ours is … That its Soil was more luxuriant, and teemed forth its Productions in far greater plenty and abundance than the present Earth does … That when Man was fallen, and had abandoned his primitive Innocence, the Case was much altered: and a far different Scene of Things presented; that generous Vertue, masculine Bravery, and prudent Circumspection which he was before Master of, now deserting him … and a strange imbecility immediately seized and laid hold of him: he became pusillanimous, and was easily ruffled with every little Passion within: supine, and as openly exposed to any Temptation or Assault from without. And now these exuberant Productions of the Earth became a continued Decoy and Snare unto him.
In An Essay Toward A Natural History of the Earth (1695), 84-86.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abundance (26)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Circumspection (5)  |  Concern (239)  |  Design (203)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Generous (17)  |  Greater (288)  |  Imbecility (5)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Innocence (13)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Masculine (4)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scene (36)  |  Soil (98)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

Chemistry is not a primitive science like geometry and astronomy; it is constructed from the debris of a previous scientific formation; a formation half chimerical and half positive, itself found on the treasure slowly amassed by the practical discoveries of metallurgy, medicine, industry and domestic economy. It has to do with alchemy, which pretended to enrich its adepts by teaching them to manufacture gold and silver, to shield them from diseases by the preparation of the panacea, and, finally, to obtain for them perfect felicity by identifying them with the soul of the world and the universal spirit.
From Les Origines de l’Alchimie (1885), 1-2. Translation as quoted in Harry Shipley Fry, 'An Outline of the History of Chemistry Symbolically Represented in a Rookwood Fountain', The Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (1 Sep 1922), 14, No. 9, 868. From the original French, “La Chimie n’est pas une science primitive, comme la géométrie ou l’astronomie; elle s’est constituée sur les débris d’une formation scientifique antérieure; formation demi-chimérique et demi-positive, fondée elle-même sur le trésor lentement amassé des découvertes pratiques de la métallurgie, de la médecine, de l’industrie et de l’économie domestique. Il s’agit de l’alchimie, qui prétendait à la fois enrichir ses adeptes en leur apprenant à fabriquer l’or et l’argent, les mettre à l’abri des maladies par la préparation de la panacée, enfin leur procurer le bonheur parfait en les identifiant avec l’âme du monde et l’esprit universel.”
Science quotes on:  |  Adept (3)  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Amass (6)  |  Amassed (2)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Chimerical (2)  |  Construct (129)  |  Constructed (3)  |  Debris (7)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Economy (59)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Felicity (4)  |  Finally (26)  |  Formation (100)  |  Found (11)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Gold (101)  |  Half (63)  |  Identifying (2)  |  Industry (159)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Metallurgy (3)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Panacea (2)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Positive (98)  |  Practical (225)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Previous (17)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shield (8)  |  Silver (49)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Universal (198)  |  World (1850)

Eskimos living in a world of ice have no word at all for that substance—and this has been cited as evidence of their primitive mentality. But ice as such is of no interest to an Eskimo; what is of interest, indeed of vital importance, are the different kinds of ice with which he must deal virtually every day of his life.
As co-author with Floyd W. Matson, in The Human Connection (1979), 174. More often seen without explanatory context, as “The Eskimos live among ice all their lives but have no single word for ice,” for example, in Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar (1989), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Different (595)  |  Eskimo (2)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Ice (58)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mentality (5)  |  Must (1525)  |  Substance (253)  |  Vital (89)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Ethnologists regard man as the primitive element of tribes, races, and peoples. The anthropologist looks at him as a member of the fauna of the globe, belonging to a zoölogical classification, and subject to the same laws as the rest of the animal kingdom. To study him from the last point of view only would be to lose sight of some of his most interesting and practical relations; but to be confined to the ethnologist’s views is to set aside the scientific rule which requires us to proceed from the simple to the compound, from the known to the unknown, from the material and organic fact to the functional phenomenon.
'Paul Broca and the French School of Anthropology'. Lecture delivered in the National Museum, Washington, D.C., 15 April 1882, by Dr. Robert Fletcher. In The Saturday Lectures (1882), 118.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Classification (102)  |  Compound (117)  |  Element (322)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Look (584)  |  Lose (165)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organic (161)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Practical (225)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Race (278)  |  Regard (312)  |  Require (229)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Set (400)  |  Sight (135)  |  Simple (426)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Unknown (195)  |  View (496)

Every creature alive on the earth today represents an unbroken line of life that stretches back to the first primitive organism to appear on this planet; and that is about three billion years.
In talk, 'Origin of Death' (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Back (395)  |  Billion (104)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Organism (231)  |  Planet (402)  |  Represent (157)  |  Today (321)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  Year (963)

Examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized?
Science quotes on:  |  Element (322)  |  Examine (84)  |  Language (308)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Natural (810)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Sound (187)

Fear, rage and pain, and the pangs of hunger are all primitive experiences which human beings share with the lower animals. These experiences are properly classed as among the most powerful that determine the action of men and beasts
From Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement (1915), vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beast (58)  |  Classify (8)  |  Determine (152)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fear (212)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Low (86)  |  Pain (144)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Rage (10)  |  Share (82)

From the aspect of energy, renewed by radio-active phenomena, material corpuscles may now be treated as transient reservoirs of concentrated power. Though never found in a state of purity, but always more or less granulated (even in light) energy nowadays represents for science the most primitive form of universal stuff.
In Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Wall (trans.), The Phenomenon of Man (1959, 2008), 42. Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955).
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Energy (373)  |  Form (976)  |  Light (635)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Purity (15)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Renew (20)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reservoir (9)  |  State (505)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Transient (13)  |  Universal (198)

I consider then, that generally speaking, to render a reason of an effect or Phaenomenon, is to deduce It from something else in Nature more known than it self, and that consequently there may be divers kinds of Degrees of Explication of the same thing. For although such Explications be the most satisfactory to the Understanding, wherein ’tis shewn how the effect is produc’d by the more primitive and Catholick Affection of Matter, namely bulk, shape and motion, yet are not these Explications to be despis’d, wherein particular effects are deduc’d from the more obvious and familiar Qualities or States of Bodies, … For in the search after Natural Causes, every new measure of Discovery does both instinct and gratifie the Understanding.
Physiological Essays (1669), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Both (496)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Cause (561)  |  Consider (428)  |  Degree (277)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Reason (766)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Search (175)  |  Self (268)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  State (505)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understanding (527)

I did not expect to find the electric cable in its primitive state, such as it was on leaving the manufactory. The long serpent, covered with the remains of shells, bristling with foraminiferae, was encrusted with a strong coating which served as a protection against all boring mollusks. It lay quietly sheltered from the motions of the sea, and under a favorable pressure for the transmission of the electric spark which passes from Europe to America in .32 of a second. Doubtless this cable will last for a great length of time, for they find that the gutta-percha covering is improved by the sea water.
[Referring to the Transatlantic telegraph cable laid in 1866, as viewed from the fictional submarine Nautilus.]
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Seas, (1874), 285. Translated from the original French edition, Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers (1870).
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  America (143)  |  Boring (7)  |  Cable (11)  |  Covering (14)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Europe (50)  |  Expect (203)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Gutta-Percha (2)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Mollusk (6)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nautilus (2)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Protection (41)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shell (69)  |  Shelter (23)  |  Spark (32)  |  State (505)  |  Strong (182)  |  Submarine (12)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transatlantic (4)  |  Transmission (34)  |  View (496)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

I think that considerable progress can be made in the analysis of the operations of nature by the scholar who reduces rather complicated phenomena to their proximate causes and primitive forces, even though the causes of those causes have not yet been detected.
R.W. Home (ed.), Aepinus's Essay on the Theory of Electricity and Magnetism (1979), 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Detect (45)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Force (497)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Physics (564)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proximate (4)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Think (1122)

I think that each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body or several, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, nor for the navy, nor to make wagons, but stand and decay for higher uses—a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation. All Walden Wood might have been reserved, with Walden in the midst of it.
In Wild Fruits: Thoreau’s Rediscovered Last Manuscript (2000), 238. Also appears as an epigraph after the title page.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Common (447)  |  Cut (116)  |  Decay (59)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Navy (10)  |  Park (10)  |  Possession (68)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stick (27)  |  Town (30)  |  Use (771)  |  Wagon (10)

I think there probably is life, maybe primitive life, in outer space. There might be very primitive life in our solar system—single-cell animals, that sort of thing. We may know the answer to that in five or ten years. There is very likely to be life in other solar systems, in planets around other stars. But we won’t know about that for a long time.
Interview conducted on Scholastic website (20 Nov 1998).
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Know (1538)  |  Know The Answer (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Single (365)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

If elephants didn’t exist, you couldn’t invent one. They belong to a small group of living things so unlikely they challenge credulity and common sense. Compared to them, we are primitive, hanging on to a stubborn, unspecialized, five-fingered state, clever but destructive. They are models of refinement, nature’s archangels, the oldest and largest land mammals, touchstones to our imagination
In Elephantoms: Tracking the Elephant (2002, 2003), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Refinement (19)

If we can combine our knowledge of science with the wisdom of wildness, if we can nurture civilization through roots in the primitive, man’s potentialities appear to be unbounded, Through this evolving awareness, and his awareness of that awareness, he can emerge with the miraculous—to which we can attach what better name than “God”? And in this merging, as long sensed by intuition but still only vaguely perceived by rationality, experience may travel without need for accompanying life.
A Letter From Lindbergh', Life (4 Jul 1969), 61. In Eugene C. Gerhart, Quote it Completely! (1998), 409.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Attach (57)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Better (493)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Combine (58)  |  Experience (494)  |  God (776)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Name (359)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Potential (75)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Root (121)  |  Still (614)  |  Through (846)  |  Travel (125)  |  Wildness (6)  |  Wisdom (235)

If we put together all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about primitive men and primitive society, we perceive that the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts.
Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals (1907), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Begin (275)  |  First (1302)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Perception (97)  |  Society (350)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)

In earlier times they had no statistics and so they had to fall back on lies. Hence the huge exaggerations of primitive literature, giants, miracles, wonders! It's the size that counts. They did it with lies and we do it with statistics: but it's all the same.
In Model Memoirs and Other Sketches from Simple to Serious (1971), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Count (107)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exaggeration (16)  |  Fall (243)  |  Giant (73)  |  Lie (370)  |  Literature (116)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Size (62)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wonder (251)

In every living being there exists a capacity for endless diversity of form; each possesses the power of adapting its organization to the variations of the external world, and it is this power, called into activity by cosmic changes, which has enabled the simple zoophytes of the primitive world to climb to higher and higher stages of organization, and has brought endless variety into nature.
From Gottfried Reinold Treviranus, Biologie, oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur [Biology, or Philosophy of Animate Nature], quoted in Lecture 1, August Weismann (1904, 2nd German ed.) as translated in August Weismann, Margaret R. Thomson (trans.), The Evolution Theory, Vol 1., 18-19.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Change (639)  |  Climb (39)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Enable (122)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exist (458)  |  External (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Higher (37)  |  Living (492)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Simple (426)  |  Stage (152)  |  Variation (93)  |  Variety (138)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoophyte (5)

In its most primitive form, life is, therefore, no longer bound to the cell, the cell which possesses structure and which can be compared to a complex wheel-work, such as a watch which ceases to exist if it is stamped down in a mortar. No, in its primitive form life is like fire, like a flame borne by the living substance;—like a flame which appears in endless diversity and yet has specificity within it;—which can adopt the form of the organic world, of the lank grass-leaf and of the stem of the tree.
Address given at the 1913 meeting of the Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen in Amsterdam. Trans. in G. Van Iterson, Jr, L. E. Den Dooren De Jong and A. J. Kluyver, Martinus Willem Beilerinck: His Life and Work (1940), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Cease (81)  |  Cell (146)  |  Complex (202)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Down (455)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flame (44)  |  Form (976)  |  Grass (49)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organic (161)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Stem (31)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Tree (269)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches.
The Positive Philosophy, trans. Harriet Martineau (1853), Vol. 1, 388.
Science quotes on:  |  Biologist (70)  |  Carry (130)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Rationality (25)

In primitive art you will find no accurate representation: you will find only significant form. Yet no other art moves us so profoundly.
In Art (1913), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Art (680)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Move (223)  |  Other (2233)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Representation (55)  |  Significant (78)  |  Will (2350)

In the beginning was the book of Nature. For eon after eon, the pages of the book turned with no human to read them. No eye wondered at the ignition of the sun, the coagulation of the earth, the birth of the moon, the solidification of a terrestrial continent, or the filling of the seas. Yet when the first primitive algae evolved to float on the waters of this ocean, a promise was born—a hope that someday all the richness and variety of the phenomena of the universe would be read with appreciative eyes.
Opening paragraph in Gary G. Tibbetts, How the Great Scientists Reasoned: The Scientific Method in Action (2012), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Algae (7)  |  Appreciative (2)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Birth (154)  |  Book (413)  |  Book Of Nature (12)  |  Born (37)  |  Coagulation (5)  |  Continent (79)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eon (12)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Eye (440)  |  Filling (6)  |  First (1302)  |  Float (31)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignition (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Page (35)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Promise (72)  |  Read (308)  |  Richness (15)  |  Sea (326)  |  Solidification (2)  |  Someday (15)  |  Sun (407)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universe (900)  |  Variety (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Wonder (251)

It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper, because his soul is away and might not have time to get back.
In The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion: Part II: Taboo and the Perils of the Soul (1890, 1911), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Common (447)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Rule (307)  |  Soul (235)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wake (17)

It is obvious that we know with certainty, that the Flütz [layered] and primitive mountains have been produced by a series of precipitations and depositions formed in succession; that they took place from water which covered the globe, existing always more or less generally, and containing the different substances which have been produced from them.
In New Theory of the Formation of Veins (1809), 110-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Deposition (4)  |  Different (595)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Layer (41)  |  Layered (2)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Precipitation (7)  |  Produced (187)  |  Series (153)  |  Substance (253)  |  Succession (80)  |  Water (503)

It is odd to think that there is a word for something which, strictly speaking, does not exist, namely, “rest.” We distinguish between living and dead matter; between moving bodies and bodies at rest. This is a primitive point of view. What seems dead, a stone or the proverbial “door-nail,” say, is actually forever in motion. We have merely become accustomed to judge by outward appearances; by the deceptive impressions we get through our senses.
Max Born
The Restless Universe (1935), I.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Become (821)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Door (94)  |  Exist (458)  |  Forever (111)  |  Impression (118)  |  Judge (114)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Motion (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Proverbial (8)  |  Reference Frame (2)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Stone (168)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  View (496)  |  Word (650)

It is one thing to say, “Some men shall rule,” quite another to declare, “All men shall rule,” and that in virtue of the most primitive, the most rudimentary attribute they possess, that namely of sex.
In “Common Sense” Applied to Woman Suffrage (1894), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Attribute (65)  |  Declare (48)  |  Discrimination (9)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Possess (157)  |  Rudimentary (4)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Sex (68)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Woman (160)

It seems probable to me that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the end for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles, being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even so very hard as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God had made one in the first creation.
From Opticks (1704, 2nd ed., 1718), 375-376.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Break (109)  |  Compound (117)  |  Creation (350)  |  Divide (77)  |  End (603)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Hard (246)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Power (771)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)

It seems to me it [hands-on experience] was more prevalent in a more primitive society, where you’re closer to machinery. [As a university teacher,] I see this with farm kids all the time. They have a more or less rugged self-reliance.
About the his concern that as society is changing, education is losing the benefits of childhood hand-on experience. In interview, Rushworth M. Kidder, 'Grounded in Space Science', Christian Science Monitor (22 Dec 1989).
Science quotes on:  |  All The Time (4)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Closer (43)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Education (423)  |  Experience (494)  |  Farm (28)  |  Hands-On (2)  |  Kid (18)  |  Machinery (59)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Prevalent (4)  |  Rugged (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Reliance (2)  |  Society (350)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Time (1911)  |  University (130)

Mathematics is a type of thought which seems ingrained in the human mind, which manifests itself to some extent with even the primitive races, and which is developed to a high degree with the growth of civilization. … A type of thought, a body of results, so essentially characteristic of the human mind, so little influenced by environment, so uniformly present in every civilization, is one of which no well-informed mind today can be ignorant.
In Teaching of Mathematics in the Elementary and the Secondary School (1906), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Degree (277)  |  Develop (278)  |  Environment (239)  |  Extent (142)  |  Growth (200)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inform (50)  |  Informed (5)  |  Ingrained (5)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Present (630)  |  Race (278)  |  Result (700)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Type (171)  |  Uniform (20)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Well-Informed (7)

Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organisation which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Annihilate (10)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biological (137)  |  Call (781)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Culture (157)  |  Depend (238)  |  Differ (88)  |  Fate (76)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Improve (64)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Lot (151)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mercy (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Organisation (7)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Self (268)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Strive (53)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Type (171)

Nature becomes fertile only by virtue of laws that oblige matter to organize itself into one of a number of necessarily very simple primitive forms. Because of their very simplicity, these are capable of constituting the basis for increasingly complex bodies, by the addition of organs calculated according to identical laws of possibility.
'Matiere', Dictionnaire Classique d' Histoire Naturelle (1822-31), Vol. 10, 277, trans. J. Mandelbaum. Quoted in Pietro Corsi, The Age of Lamarck (1988), 225.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Addition (70)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Capable (174)  |  Complex (202)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Form (976)  |  Identical (55)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Oblige (6)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organize (33)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Virtue (117)

Now it is a well-known principle of zoological evolution that an isolated region, if large and sufficiently varied in its topography, soil, climate and vegetation, will give rise to a diversified fauna according to the law of adaptive radiation from primitive and central types. Branches will spring off in all directions to take advantage of every possible opportunity of securing food. The modifications which animals undergo in this adaptive radiation are largely of mechanical nature, they are limited in number and kind by hereditary, stirp or germinal influences, and thus result in the independent evolution of similar types in widely-separated regions under the law of parallelism or homoplasy. This law causes the independent origin not only of similar genera but of similar families and even of our similar orders. Nature thus repeats herself upon a vast scale, but the similarity is never complete and exact.
'The Geological and Faunal Relations of Europe and America during the Tertiary Period and the Theory of the Successive Invasions of an African Fauna', Science (1900), 11, 563-64.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Animal (651)  |  Branch (155)  |  Cause (561)  |  Central (81)  |  Climate (102)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Direction (185)  |  Diversification (2)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Family (101)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Food (213)  |  Genus (27)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Independence (37)  |  Influence (231)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Parallelism (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Region (40)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scale (122)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spring (140)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoology (38)

Number is therefore the most primitive instrument of bringing an unconscious awareness of order into consciousness.
In Creation Myths (1995), 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Awareness (42)  |  Bringing (10)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Unconscious (24)

Of the nucleosides from deoxyribonucleic acids, all that was known with any certainty [in the 1940s] was that they were 2-deoxy-­D-ribosides of the bases adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine and it was assumed that they were structurally analogous to the ribonucleosides. The chemistry of the nucleotides—the phosphates of the nucleosides—was in a correspondingly primitive state. It may well be asked why the chemistry of these groups of compounds was not further advanced, particularly since we recognize today that they occupy a central place in the history of the living cell. True, their full significance was for a long time unrecognized and emerged only slowly as biochemical research got into its stride but I think a more important reason is to be found in the physical properties of compounds of the nucleotide group. As water-soluble polar compounds with no proper melting points they were extremely difficult to handle by the classic techniques of organic chemistry, and were accordingly very discouraging substances to early workers. It is surely no accident that the major advances in the field have coincided with the appearance of new experimental techniques such as paper and ion-exchange chromatography, paper electrophoresis, and countercurrent distribution, peculiarly appropriate to the compounds of this group.
In 'Synthesis in the Study of Nucleotides', Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1957. In Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1942-1962 (1964), 524.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Acid (83)  |  Adenine (6)  |  Advance (298)  |  Analogous (7)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Ask (420)  |  Base (120)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Cell (146)  |  Central (81)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Cytosine (6)  |  Deoxyribonucleic Acid (3)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Early (196)  |  Electrophoresis (2)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Field (378)  |  Guanine (5)  |  Handle (29)  |  History (716)  |  Ion (21)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Major (88)  |  Melting Point (3)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Nucleotide (6)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Paper (192)  |  Phosphate (6)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Polar (13)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Significance (114)  |  Soluble (5)  |  State (505)  |  Stride (15)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surely (101)  |  Technique (84)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thymine (6)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)

One of the commonest dietary superstitions of the day is a belief in instinct as a guide to dietary excellence ... with a corollary that the diets of primitive people are superior to diets approved by science ... [and even] that light might be thrown on the problems of human nutrition by study of what chimpanzees eat in their native forests. ... Such notions are derivative of the eighteenth-century fiction of the happy and noble savage.
Nutrition and Public Health', League of Nations Health Organization Quarterly Bulletin (1935) 4, 323–474. In Kenneth J. Carpenter, 'The Work of Wallace Aykroyd: International Nutritionist and Author', The Journal of Nutrition (2007), 137, 873-878.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Century (319)  |  Chimpanzee (14)  |  Diet (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Fiction (23)  |  Forest (161)  |  Guide (107)  |  Happy (108)  |  Human (1512)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Light (635)  |  Native (41)  |  Noble (93)  |  Notion (120)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  People (1031)  |  Problem (731)  |  Savage (33)  |  Study (701)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superstition (70)

One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet is the most precious thing we have.
Epigraph in Banesh Hoffmann and Helen Dukas, Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (1972, 1973), vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Most (1728)  |  Precious (43)  |  Reality (274)  |  Thing (1914)

One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world’s problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive - it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.
In Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Awe (43)  |  Demand (131)  |  Equip (6)  |  Equipped (17)  |  Essentially (15)  |  Generation (256)  |  Instant (46)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Problem (731)  |  Produce (117)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Solution (282)  |  Stand (284)  |  Submit (21)  |  Technology (281)  |  Tutelage (2)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

Pure mathematics is a collection of hypothetical, deductive theories, each consisting of a definite system of primitive, undefined, concepts or symbols and primitive, unproved, but self-consistent assumptions (commonly called axioms) together with their logically deducible consequences following by rigidly deductive processes without appeal to intuition.
In 'Non-Euclidian Geometry of the Fourth Dimension', collected in Henry Parker Manning (ed.), The Fourth Dimension Simply Explained (1910), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Call (781)  |  Collection (68)  |  Commonly (9)  |  Concept (242)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consist (223)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hypothetical (6)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Process (439)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Rigidly (4)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Consistent (2)  |  Symbol (100)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  Undefined (3)  |  Unproved (2)

Reproduction is so primitive and fundamental a function of vital organisms that the mechanism by which it is assured is highly complex and not yet clearly understood. It is not necessarily connected with sex, nor is sex necessarily connected with reproduction.
Psychology of Sex (1933), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Complex (202)  |  Connect (126)  |  Function (235)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Organism (231)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Sex (68)  |  Understood (155)  |  Vital (89)

Science, being human enquiry, can hear no answer except an answer couched somehow in human tones. Primitive man stood in the mountains and shouted against a cliff; the echo brought back his own voice, and he believed in a disembodied spirit. The scientist of today stands counting out loud in the face of the unknown. Numbers come back to him—and he believes in the Great Mathematician.
Concluding paragraph of chapter, 'Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics: Or Beyond Common-Sense', contributed to Naomi Mitchison (ed.), An Outline For Boys And Girls And Their Parents (1932), 357.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Couch (2)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Disembodied (6)  |  Echo (12)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Face (214)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Number (710)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Shout (25)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Today (321)  |  Tone (22)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Voice (54)

The Earth Speaks, clearly, distinctly, and, in many of the realms of Nature, loudly, to William Jennings Bryan, but he fails to hear a single sound. The earth speaks from the remotest periods in its wonderful life history in the Archaeozoic Age, when it reveals only a few tissues of its primitive plants. Fifty million years ago it begins to speak as “the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life.” In successive eons of time the various kinds of animals leave their remains in the rocks which compose the deeper layers of the earth, and when the rocks are laid bare by wind, frost, and storm we find wondrous lines of ascent invariably following the principles of creative evolution, whereby the simpler and more lowly forms always precede the higher and more specialized forms.
The earth speaks not of a succession of distinct creations but of a continuous ascent, in which, as the millions of years roll by, increasing perfection of structure and beauty of form are found; out of the water-breathing fish arises the air-breathing amphibian; out of the land-living amphibian arises the land-living, air-breathing reptile, these two kinds of creeping things resembling each other closely. The earth speaks loudly and clearly of the ascent of the bird from one kind of reptile and of the mammal from another kind of reptile.
This is not perhaps the way Bryan would have made the animals, but this is the way God made them!
The Earth Speaks to Bryan (1925), 5-6. Osborn wrote this book in response to the Scopes Monkey Trial, where William Jennings Bryan spoke against the theory of evolution. They had previously been engaged in the controversy about the theory for several years. The title refers to a Biblical verse from the Book of Job (12:8), “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.”
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Air (366)  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bird (163)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathing (23)  |  William Jennings Bryan (20)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eon (12)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fish (130)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Frost (15)  |  God (776)  |  Hear (144)  |  History (716)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Kind (564)  |  Land (131)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Period (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Principle (530)  |  Realm (87)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remains (9)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roll (41)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Storm (56)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Year (963)

The fundamental hypothesis of genetic epistemology is that there is a parallelism between the progress made in the logical and rational organization of knowledge and the corresponding formative psychological processes. With that hypothesis, the most fruitful, most obvious field of study would be the reconstituting of human history—the history of human thinking in prehistoric man. Unfortunately, we are not very well informed in the psychology of primitive man, but there are children all around us, and it is in studying children that we have the best chance of studying the development of logical knowledge, physical knowledge, and so forth.
'Genetic Epistemology', Columbia Forum (1969), 12, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Chance (244)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Development (441)  |  Epistemology (8)  |  Field (378)  |  Formation (100)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inform (50)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Organization (120)  |  Parallelism (2)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Rational (95)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Unfortunately (40)

The greatest spiritual revolutionary Western history, Saint Francis, proposed what he thought was an alternative Christian view of nature and man’s relation to it: he tried to substitute the idea of the equality of creatures, including man, for the idea of man’s limitless rule of creation. He failed. Both our present science and our present technology are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature that no solution for our ecologic crisis can be expected from them alone. Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not. We must rethink and refeel our nature and destiny. The profoundly religious, but heretical, sense of the primitive Franciscans for the spiritual autonomy of all parts of nature may point a direction. I propose Francis as a patron saint for ecologists.
In The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis (1967), 1207.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Autonomy (6)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Christian (44)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Direction (185)  |  Ecologist (9)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Equality (34)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fail (191)  |  Greatest (330)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Limitless (14)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Relation (166)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Root (121)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saint (17)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trouble (117)  |  View (496)  |  Western (45)

The individual, if left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Beast (58)  |  Beast-Like (2)  |  Birth (154)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Degree (277)  |  Direct (228)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Grave (52)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Society (14)  |  Individual (420)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Leave (138)  |  Material (366)  |  Member (42)  |  Remain (355)  |  Significance (114)  |  Society (350)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Thought (995)  |  Virtue (117)

The instinct for collecting, which began as in other animals as an adaptive property, could always in man spread beyond reason; it could become a hoarding mania. But in its normal form it provides a means of livelihood at the hunting and collecting stage of human evolution. It is then attached to a variety of rational aptitudes, above all in observing, classifying, and naming plants, animals and minerals, skills diversely displayed by primitive peoples. These skills with an instinctive beginning were the foundation of most of the civilised arts and sciences. Attached to other skills in advanced societies they promote the formation of museums and libraries; detached, they lead to acquisition and classification by eccentric individuals, often without any purpose or value at all.
As quoted in Richard Fifield, 'Cytologist Supreme', New Scientist (16 Apr 1981), 90, No. 1249, 179; citing C.D. Darlington, The Little Universe of Man (1978).
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Art (680)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Become (821)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Classification (102)  |  Collection (68)  |  Display (59)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Lead (391)  |  Library (53)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mania (3)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Most (1728)  |  Museum (40)  |  Name (359)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Plant (320)  |  Promote (32)  |  Property (177)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Skill (116)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stage (152)  |  Value (393)  |  Variety (138)

The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogether bestial and savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it takes on a somewhat more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself as the instrument of reason and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political fiction, which is called the public good. But in its essence it remains just as baneful, and it becomes even more so when, with the application of science, it extends its scope and intensifies the power of its action. If there is a devil in history, it is this power principle.
In Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin, Grigorii Petrovich Maksimov, Max Nettlau, The political philosophy of Bakunin (1953), 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Action (342)  |  Application (257)  |  Baneful (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Bestial (3)  |  Call (781)  |  Carnivorous (7)  |  Command (60)  |  Development (441)  |  Devil (34)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Essence (85)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fiction (23)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Influence (231)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intensify (2)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Political (124)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remain (355)  |  Savage (33)  |  Scope (44)  |  Servant (40)

The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples’ lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admirably (3)  |  Against (332)  |  Base (120)  |  Blend (9)  |  Both (496)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Development (441)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Especially (31)  |  Fear (212)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guard (19)  |  High (370)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Jewish (15)  |  Level (69)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  New Testament (3)  |  Orient (5)  |  People (1031)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Primarily (12)  |  Purely (111)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Life (8)  |  Step (234)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Type (171)  |  Vary (27)

The long-range trend toward federal regulation, which found its beginnings in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Act of 1890, which was quickened by a large number of measures in the Progressive era, and which has found its consummation in our time, was thus at first the response of a predominantly individualistic public to the uncontrolled and starkly original collectivism of big business. In America the growth of the national state and its regulative power has never been accepted with complacency by any large part of the middle-class public, which has not relaxed its suspicion of authority, and which even now gives repeated evidence of its intense dislike of statism. In our time this growth has been possible only under the stress of great national emergencies, domestic or military, and even then only in the face of continuous resistance from a substantial part of the public. In the Progressive era it was possible only because of widespread and urgent fear of business consolidation and private business authority. Since it has become common in recent years for ideologists of the extreme right to portray the growth of statism as the result of a sinister conspiracy of collectivists inspired by foreign ideologies, it is perhaps worth emphasizing that the first important steps toward the modern organization of society were taken by arch-individualists—the tycoons of the Gilded Age—and that the primitive beginning of modern statism was largely the work of men who were trying to save what they could of the eminently native Yankee values of individualism and enterprise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Arch (12)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Big Business (2)  |  Business (156)  |  Class (168)  |  Collectivism (2)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Consolidation (4)  |  Conspiracy (6)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Dislike (16)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Emergency (10)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Face (214)  |  Fear (212)  |  Federal (6)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Gilded (3)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Important (229)  |  Individualism (3)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Intense (22)  |  Large (398)  |  Largely (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Range (3)  |  Measure (241)  |  Middle-Class (2)  |  Military (45)  |  Modern (402)  |  National (29)  |  Native (41)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Original (61)  |  Part (235)  |  Portray (6)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Predominantly (4)  |  Private (29)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Public (100)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Range (104)  |  Recent (78)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Relax (3)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Response (56)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Save (126)  |  Sinister (8)  |  Society (350)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Stress (22)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toward (45)  |  Trend (23)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncontrolled (2)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Value (393)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)  |  Yankee (2)  |  Year (963)

The modesty of women, which, in its most primitive form among animals, is based on sexual periodicity, is, with that periodicity, an essential condition of courtship.
Psychology of Sex (1933), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Condition (362)  |  Essential (210)  |  Form (976)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Most (1728)  |  Periodicity (6)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sexual (27)

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.
As quoted in Philip Frank, Einstein: His Life and Times (1947), chap. 12, sec. 5 - “Einstein’s Attitude Toward Religion.”
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Awe (43)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Belong (168)  |  Center (35)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Death (406)  |  Dull (58)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Impenetrable (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystical (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Radiant (15)  |  Rank (69)  |  Rapt (5)  |  Religious (134)  |  Religiousness (3)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stranger (16)  |  True (239)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wonder (251)

The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings. I cannot imagine, even in our most primitive times, the emergence of talented painters to make cave paintings without there having been, near at hand, equally creative people making song. It is, like speech, a dominant aspect of human biology.
In 'The Music of This Sphere', The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cave Painting (2)  |  Creative (144)  |  Dominant (26)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Equally (129)  |  Express (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Human Biology (3)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Listen (81)  |  Making (300)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Need (320)  |  Painter (30)  |  People (1031)  |  Song (41)  |  Speech (66)  |  Talent (99)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universal (198)

The occurrence of an internal skeleton, in definite relations to the other organ systems, and the articulation of the body into homologous segments, are points in the general organization of Vertebrates to which especial weight must be given. This metameric structure is more or less definitely expressed in most of the organs, and as it extends to the axial skeleton, the latter also gradually articulates into separate segments, the vertebrae. The latter, however, must be regarded only as the partial expression of a general articulation of the body which is all the more important in consequence of its appearing prior to the articulation of the originally inarticulate axial skeleton. Hence this general articulation may be considered as a primitive vertebral structure, to which the articulation of the axial skeleton is related as a secondary process of the same sort.
As translated and quoted in Ernst Haeckel and E. Ray Lankester (trans.) as epigraph for Chap. 11, The History of Creation (1886), Vol. 1, 328-329.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Definite (114)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extend (129)  |  General (521)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Homologous (4)  |  Internal (69)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Process (439)  |  Regard (312)  |  Separate (151)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Weight (140)

The primitive history of the species is all the more fully retained in its germ-history in proportion as the series of embryonic forms traversed is longer; and it is more accurately retained the less the mode of life of the recent forms differs from that of the earlier, and the less the peculiarities of the several embryonic states must be regarded as transferred from a later to an earlier period of life, or as acquired independently. (1864)
As translated and quoted in Ernst Haeckel and E. Ray Lankester (trans.) as epigraph for Chap. 13, The History of Creation (1886), Vol. 1, 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Earlier (9)  |  Embryonic (6)  |  Form (976)  |  Germ (54)  |  History (716)  |  Independently (24)  |  Later (18)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Period (200)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Recent (78)  |  Regard (312)  |  Retain (57)  |  Series (153)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Transfer (21)  |  Traverse (5)

The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent on each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is–insofar as it is thinkable at all–primitive and muddled.
In Ralph Keyesr, The Quote Verifier, 51-52.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Contact (66)  |  Empty (82)  |  Epistemology (8)  |  Kind (564)  |  Other (2233)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Thinkable (5)

The sciences are like a beautiful river, of which the course is easy to follow, when it has acquired a certain regularity; but if one wants to go back to the source, one will find it nowhere, because it is everywhere; it is spread so much [as to be] over all the surface of the earth; it is the same if one wants to go back to the origin of the sciences, one will find only obscurity, vague ideas, vicious circles; and one loses oneself in the primitive ideas.
In Essai sur les machines en général (1783), conclusion, as translated in Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Convolutions in French Mathematics, 1800-1840 (1990), Vol. 1, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Back (395)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Certain (557)  |  Circle (117)  |  Course (413)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Origin (250)  |  Regularity (40)  |  River (140)  |  Source (101)  |  Spread (86)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vicious Circle (4)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

The terror of the thunderstorm led primitive man to the conception of a Supreme Being whose attribute was the thunderbolt. But when Franklin brought the lightning from the clouds and showed it to he a mere electric spark, when we learned to make the lightning harmless by the lightning-rod, and when finally we harnessed electricity to do our work, naturally our reverence for the thrower of the thunderbolt decayed. So the gods of experience vanished.
In 'Religion and Modern Science', The Christian Register (16 Nov 1922), 101, 1089. The article is introduced as “the substance of an address to the Laymen’s League in All Soul’s Church (5 Nov 1922).
Science quotes on:  |  Attribute (65)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bring (95)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Conception (160)  |  Decay (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experience (494)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  God (776)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Harness (25)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Lightning-Rod (2)  |  Man (2252)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Show (353)  |  Spark (32)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Supreme Being (8)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thunderbolt (7)  |  Thunderstorm (7)  |  Vanish (19)  |  Work (1402)

There are no peoples however primitive without religion and magic. Nor are there, it must be added at one, any savage races lacking in either the scientific attitude, or in science, though this lack has been frequently attributed to them.
Magic, Science and Religion (1954), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Attitude (84)  |  Lack (127)  |  Magic (92)  |  Must (1525)  |  People (1031)  |  Race (278)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scientific (955)

There are pessimists who hold that such a state of affairs is necessarily inherent in human nature; it is those who propound such views that are the enemies of true religion, for they imply thereby that religious teachings are utopian ideals and unsuited to afford guidance in human affairs. The study of the social patterns in certain so-called primitive cultures, however, seems to have made it sufficiently evident that such a defeatist view is wholly unwarranted.
From a response to a greeting sent by the Liberal Ministers' Club of New York City, published in The Christian Register (Jun 1948). Collected as 'Religion and Science: Irreconcilable?', in Carl Seelig (ed.)Ideas and Opinions (1954, 2010), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Afford (19)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Culture (157)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Evident (92)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Hold (96)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Affairs (6)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imply (20)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Pessimist (7)  |  Propound (2)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Seem (150)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  State (505)  |  State Of affairs (5)  |  Study (701)  |  Sufficiently (9)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Thereby (5)  |  True (239)  |  Unwarranted (2)  |  Utopian (3)  |  View (496)  |  Wholly (88)

There is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of primitive and civilized man. A close connection between race and personality has never been established.
The Mind of Primitive Man (1938), preface, v.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Personality (66)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Race (278)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Way (1214)

These two orders of mountains [Secondary and Tertiary] offer the most ancient chronicle of our globe, least liable to falsifications and at the same time more legible than the writing of the primitive ranges. They are Nature's archives, prior to even the most remote records and traditions that have been preserved for our observant century to investigate, comment on and bring to the light of day, and which will not be exhausted for several centuries after our own.
Observations sur la Formation des Montagnes', Acta Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae (1777) [1778], 46. Trans. Albert Carozzi.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Archive (5)  |  Century (319)  |  Chronicle (6)  |  Comment (12)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Falsification (11)  |  Globe (51)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Least (75)  |  Legibility (2)  |  Liability (7)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Offer (142)  |  Order (638)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Range (104)  |  Record (161)  |  Remote (86)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Tertiary (4)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)

To characterize the import of pure geometry, we might use the standard form of a movie-disclaimer: No portrayal of the characteristics of geometrical figures or of the spatial properties of relationships of actual bodies is intended, and any similarities between the primitive concepts and their customary geometrical connotations are purely coincidental.
From 'Geometry and Empirical Science', collected in Carl Hempel and James H. Fetzer (ed.), The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel: Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality (2001), Chap. 2, 24. Also Carl Hempel, 'Geometry and Empirical Science', collected in J.R. Newman (ed.), The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 3, 1641.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Body (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Concept (242)  |  Connotation (2)  |  Customary (18)  |  Disclaimer (2)  |  Figure (162)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Importance (299)  |  Intend (18)  |  Movie (21)  |  Portrayal (2)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purely (111)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Spatial (10)  |  Use (771)

We may... have to relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth... The developmental process described in this essay has been a process of evolution from primitive beginnings—a process whose successive stages are characterized by an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature. But nothing that has been or will be said makes it a process of evolution toward anything.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), 169-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Carry (130)  |  Change (639)  |  Closer (43)  |  Detail (150)  |  Development (441)  |  Essay (27)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Implicit (12)  |  Learn (672)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Process (439)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stage (152)  |  Succession (80)  |  Successive (73)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

When ultra-violet light acts on a mixture of water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia, a vast variety of organic substances are made, including sugars and apparently some of the materials from which proteins are built up…. But before the origin of life they must have accumulated till the primitive oceans reached the consistency of hot dilute soup…. The first living or half-living things were probably large molecules synthesized under the influence of the sun’s radiation, and only capable of reproduction in the particularly favorable medium in which they originated….
In 'The Origin of Life', The Inequality of Man: And Other Essays (1932, 1937), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Capable (174)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Favorable (24)  |  First (1302)  |  Hot (63)  |  Influence (231)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Medium (15)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Originate (39)  |  Protein (56)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Soup (10)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Sun (407)  |  Synthesize (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vast (188)  |  Violet (11)  |  Water (503)

When we are young, we think that science has to do with facts, with finding answers and solutions, and that it proceeds like an arrow from the primitive to the sophisticated, from mystery to light. But as we get older, we find that, while science does have to do with facts and laws, it has equally to do with wisdom.
In Introduction to Isaac Asimov and Jason A. Shulman (eds.), Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), xix.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Do (1905)  |  Equally (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Young (253)

When we survey our lives and endeavours we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings. We see that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We eat food that others have grown, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our mental capacities would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals; we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Admit (49)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beast (58)  |  Beast-Like (2)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bind (26)  |  Birth (154)  |  Bound (120)  |  Build (211)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Clothes (11)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Comparable (7)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Create (245)  |  Degree (277)  |  Desire (212)  |  Direct (228)  |  Eat (108)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Food (213)  |  Grave (52)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hardly (19)  |  High (370)  |  House (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Human Society (14)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Leave (138)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Medium (15)  |  Member (42)  |  Mental (179)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Part (235)  |  People (1031)  |  Poor (139)  |  Principal (69)  |  Remain (355)  |  Resemble (65)  |  See (1094)  |  Significance (114)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Survey (36)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wear (20)  |  Whole (756)

Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing. I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old.
In 'Wilderness for Recreation', A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (1949, 1987), 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Backpack (2)  |  Bone (101)  |  Canoe (6)  |  Debate (40)  |  Important (229)  |  Know (1538)  |  Old (499)  |  Sanctuary (12)  |  Travel (125)  |  Wilderness (57)


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.