Quip Quotes (81 quotes)
[Like people] if you torture statistics long enough, they'll tell you anything you want to hear.
In Erica Beecher-Monas, Evaluating Scientific Evidence (2007), 63.
[Student:} I only use my math book on special equations.
From movie Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979). Writers, Richard Whitley, Russ Dvonch and Joseph McBride. In Larry Langman and Paul Gold, Comedy Quotes from the Movies (2001), 359.
Parkinson's First Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Parkinson's Law or the Pursuit of Progress1 (1958), 4.
A mathematician thinks that two points are enough to define a straight line, while a physicist wants more data.
A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.
Collected Papers
A psychiatrist is a man who goes to the Folies-Bergère and looks at the audience.
In Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), 747.
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
Quoted in J. B. Birks, Rutherford at Manchester (1962), 108, without citation. Webmaster has not been able to find any earlier example of the quote in print. If you know a primary print source, or very early reference to this quote, please contact the Webmaster. If—a strong if—truly a Rutherford quote, and such a snappy one, surely it should have been better documented from decades earlier?
An epidemiologist is a doctor broken down by age and sex.
Any clod can have the facts; having opinions is an art.
McCabe's motto (?) as columnist for San Francisco Chronicle. Margin quote, in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Computer Group, Computer (1984), 89.
Archaeology is the science that proves you can’t keep a good man down.
In Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings (1993), 24.
ARCHIMEDES. On hearing his name, shout “Eureka!” Or else: “Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world”. There is also Archimedes’ screw, but you are not expected to know what that is.
The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas (1881), trans. Jaques Barzun (1968), 15.
Behaviorism is the art of pulling habits out of rats.
In Jon Fripp, Michael Fripp and Deborah Fripp, Speaking of Science (2000), 23.
COLD. Healthier than heat.
The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas (1881), trans. Jaques Barzun (1968), 25.
DOCTOR. Always preceded by “The good”. Among men, in familiar conversation, “Oh! balls, doctor!” Is a wizard when he enjoys your confidence, a jack-ass when you're no longer on terms. All are materialists: “you can't probe for faith with a scalpel.”
The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas (1881), trans. Jaques Barzun (1968), 30.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Thomas F. Shubnell, Greatest Jokes of the Century Book 2 (2008), 90.
Electricity is really just organized lightning.
In Napalm and Silly Putty (2002), 170.
Entropy isn’t what it used to be.
Thomas F. Shubnell, Greatest Jokes of the Century Book 2 (2008), 90.
Every science thinks it is the science.
In Leonard and Thelma Spinrad, Speaker's Lifetime Library (1979), 220.
Exploratory operation: a remunerative reconnaissance.
Give 'em 2.5 cm, and they'll take 1.6 km.
Great science is an art.
In Leonard and Thelma Spinrad, Speaker's Lifetime Library (1979), 220.
Heisenberg may have slept here.
Anonymous. Note: The quip depends upon the reader knowing the Uncertainty Principle.
I am not unmindful of the journalist’s quip that yesterday’s paper wraps today’s garbage. I am also not unmindful of the outrages visited upon our forests to publish redundant and incoherent collections of essays; for, like Dr. Seuss’ Lorax, I like to think that I speak for the trees. Beyond vanity, my only excuses for a collection of these essays lie in the observation that many people like (and as many people despise) them, and that they seem to cohere about a common theme–Darwin’s evolutionary perspective as an antidote to our cosmic arrogance.
…...
I don't quite hear what you say, but I beg to differ entirely with you.
I forget whether you take in the Times; for the chance of your not doing so, I send the enclosed rich letter. It is, I am sure, by Fitz-Roy. … It is a pity he did not add his theory of the extinction of Mastodon, etc., from the door of the Ark being made too small.
Letter (5 Dec 1859) to Charles Lyell. In Francis Darwin and Albert Charles Seward (eds.), More Letters of Charles Darwin: A Record of his Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters (103), Vol. 1, 129. The referenced letters in the Times were on 1 Dec and 5 Dec 1859, signed under the pseudonym “Senex”, on the topic of “Works of Art in the Drift.”
I think modern science should graft functional wings on a pig, simply so no one can ever use that stupid saying again.
In K. D. Sullivan, A Cure for the Common Word (2007), 134.
I'd lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.
Quipped in a pub conversation. 'Accidental Career', New Scientist, 8 Aug 1974, 325.
If a train station is where the train stops, what is a work station?
In Andrew Davison, Humour the Computer (1995), 36.
If medical science continues to prolong human life, some of us may eventually pay off the mortgage.
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1968, 1995), 532.
If there is no God, we are just molecules in motion, and we have no sense and no mind; we are just random firings of chemical in the brain. If our minds are composed only of physical matter, then our thoughts are, as Doug Wilson wittily quipped in his debate with atheist Dan Barker, just “brain gas.”
God Does Exist (2005), 45.
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be research.
Seen in various publications attributed—but without citation—to Albert Einstein. Also seen attributed to J.C. Stamos. Webmaster is doubtful, and is placing it under Anonymous. But, if you know the primary print source, perhaps in different wording, please contact the Webmaster.
If you ask the fish whether they’d rather have an oil spill or a season of fishing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d vote for another blowout.
As quoted by Mark Bittman in 'What's Worse Than an Oil Spill?', New York Times (20 Apr 2011), A23.
If you've got time to kill, work it to death.
In Bob Phillips, Phillips' Treasury of Humorous Quotations (2004), 253.
It is better to stir up a question without deciding it than to decide it without stirring it up.
In Pensées and Letters of Joseph Joubert (1928), 74.
LITTRÉ. Snicker on hearing his name: “the gentleman who thinks we are descended from the apes.”
The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas (1881), trans. Jaques Barzun (1968), 59.
Live and learn; die and forget it all.
Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.
'A Cuba Policy That's Stuck On Plan A', opinion column, The Washington Post (17 Apr 2009)
Marriage is an ancient institution and most of our knowledge of antiquity is gleaned from shattered pottery.
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1968, 1995), 40.
Microbiology Lab - Staph Only
Thomas F. Shubnell, Greatest Jokes of the Century Book 2 (2008), 90.
Newton said, “If I have seen further than others, it is because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants.” These days we stand on each other’s feet!
In 'You and Your Research', Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
No man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover.
In 'Technical Education and Its Relation to Science and Literature', The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 74.
No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.
Thomas F. Shubnell, Greatest Jokes of the Century Book 2 (2008), 90.
Nothing you can't spell will ever work.
In 'Breaking into the Writing Game', The Illiterate Digest (1924). Also in column 'Rogers Interviews Self' (3 Jan 1933), The Spokesman-Review (4 Jan 1933), 1.
Psychiatrist: A man who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks you for nothing.
Attributed.
Research serves to make building stones out of stumbling blocks.
Quoted in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technology Review (1932), 34, 4.
Science has always been too dignified to invent a good back-scratcher.
In Edward Anthony, O Rare Don Marquis (1962), 354.
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man’s upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor. But if a man hasn’t got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has the worse for his patient.
'The Poet at the Breakfast-Table', Chapter 5. The Atlantic Monthly (May 1872), 29, 607.
Science is forever rewriting itself.
In Leonard and Thelma Spinrad, Speaker's Lifetime Library (1979), 220.
Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
This, and variations, appear in various places attributed (highly likely incorrectly) to Richard Feynman, but without any primary source citation. For example, see John Lloyd and John Mitchinson, If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? : Smart Quotes for Dumb Times (2009), 274. It is also very suspicious that no example, readily found on the internet, is dated earlier than 2000, yet such a salacious remark surely would have seen the light of day long before that! Also seen worded beginning with: "Physics is….” If you know any instance of this quote published before 2000, please contact Webmaster.
Science is the ascertainment of facts and the refusal to regard facts as permanent.
In Leonard and Thelma Spinrad, Speaker's Lifetime Library (1979), 220.
Science is wonderful: for years uranium cost only a few dollars a ton until scientists discovered you could kill people with it.
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 703.
Show me an archaeologist, and I'll show you a man who practices skull drugery.
In Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings (1993), 24.
Some people have remarked that if the surface of the moon were covered with diamonds, it would hardly be worthwhile bringing them back.
In interview, Rushworth M. Kidder, 'Grounded in Space Science', Christian Science Monitor (22 Dec 1989).
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Attributed.
Statistician: A man who believes figures don’t lie but admits that, under analysis some of them won’t stand up either.
In Esar’s Comic Dictionary (1943, 4th ed. 1983), 568.
Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
In Esar’s Comic Dictionary (1943, 4th ed. 1983), 569.
Supposing is good, but finding out is better.
Mark Twain in Eruption: hitherto unpublished pages about men and events (1940), 324. In Caroline Thomas Harnsberger, Mark Twain at Your Fingertips (1948), 232.
Television is chewing gum for the eyes.
In Geoff Tibballs, The Mammoth Book of Humor (2000), 365.
The banker asks, 'how much?' The scientist asks, 'how come?'
In Leonard and Thelma Spinrad, Speaker's Lifetime Library (1979), 220.
The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
Attributed. In Peter McDonald Slop, Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations (2004), 37.
The brain is an island in an osmotically homogeneous sea.
From a lecture. Quoted in 'The Best Hope of All', Time (3 May 1963)
The moment a bar of gold walked into a pub, the landlord shouted “A U, get out!”
The more I see of men, the better I like my dog.
Webmaster has seen this quote attributed, without citation, to Blaise Pascal, in Howard W. Eves, Return to Mathematical Circles, (1988). Also seen attributed to Frederick the Great (said to have greyhounds). Until Webmaster finds an authentic primary source to verify it, it probably is best regarded as Anonymou. Can you help?
The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage
In Eileen Mason, Great Book of Funny Quotes: Witty Words for Every Day of the Year (1993). Quoted in Lilly Walters, What to Say When … You're Dying on the Platform (1995), 173.
The space scientist is a most remarkable man: he has his feet on the ground and his head in the clouds.
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 703.
The spine is a series of bones running down your back. You sit on one end of it and your head sits on the other.
The ways of science are unpredicatable: it can get men up to the moon, but it cannot get pigeons down from public buildings.
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 703.
The word “comet” has been derived by some from the Latin coma, a tail; but the better derivation is comma, because it never can come to a full stop.
In Gilbert Abbott À Beckett et al., The Comic Almanack: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities: 2nd Series, 1844-1853 (1892), Vol. 2.
There are two kinds of sleep. The sleep of the just and the sleep of the just after.
This afternoon, I’ve arranged for this ceremony to be illuminated by solar power. [In the early afternoon, on the White House roof, dedicating solar panels installed there.]
Speech, at dedication of solar panels on the White House roof, 'Solar Energy Remarks Announcing Administration Proposals' (20 Jun 1979).
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Sometimes seen on the web attributed to Isaac Asimov, but without citation. Webmaster has not yet found a reliable source. Meanwhile, consider it uncertain. Please contact Webmaster if you know a primary print source.
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
In Juanita Rose Violini, Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored (2009), 56. If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster, who has not yet found a primary source for this quote, although occasionally seen attributed to Vonnegut.
Juanita Rose Violini
Tis better than riches
To scratch when it itches
To scratch when it itches
To many of us, the first law of dietetics seems to be: if it tastes good, it’s bad for you.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 57.
Want to make your computer go really fast? Throw it out a window.
In L. R. Parenti, Durata Del Dramma: Life Of Drama (2005), 32.
When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute—and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.
Explanation given to his secretary, Helen Dukas, to relay to reporters and laypersons.
Explanation given to his secretary, Helen Dukas, to relay to reporters and laypersons.
James B. Simpson, Best Quotes of '54, '55, '56 (1957), as cited in Fred R. Shapiro and Joseph Epstein, The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), 230. Also reprinted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988), 208, annotated merely as “recalled on his death 18 Apr 1955.” Compare with the News Chronicle (14 Mar 1949) as “When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”
When science finally locates the center of the universe, some people will be surprised to learn they're not it.
Source uncertain. Often identified as Anonymous. Sometimes attributed to Bernard Bailey, for example, in a chapter heading quote (without citation) in juvenile fiction by P.G. Kain, The Social Experiments of Dorie Dilts: Dumped by Popular Demand (2007), 126. Sometimes found on the web attributed to Bernard Bailey, but just as often it is Anonymous. If you can identify Bernard Bailey or know an original print source, please contact Webmaster.
When someone abuses me I can defend myself, but against praise I am defenceless.
Attributed.
Wooden legs are not inherited, although wooden heads may be.
On the view that acquired characteristics can be inherited. As quoted by E. Newton Harvey, in 'Edwin Grant Conklin: A Biographical Memoir', Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences(1958), Vol. 31, 59.
Yesterday's dreams are today's science
In Leonard and Thelma Spinrad, Speaker's Lifetime Library (1979), 220.
Zenophobia: the irrational fear of converging sequences.
Pun on the name of the Greek philosopher, Zeno, famous for his challenging paradoxes concerning converging sequences.
Pun on the name of the Greek philosopher, Zeno, famous for his challenging paradoxes concerning converging sequences.
In Wieslaw Krawcewicz, Bindhyachal Rai, Calculus with Maple Labs (2003), 407.
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) -- 
