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: “Genius is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index R > Category: Road

Road Quotes (71 quotes)

[Public cynicism towards professional expertise is] entirely wrong, and it’s the road back to the cave. The way we got out of the caves and into modern civilisation is through the process of understanding and thinking. Those things were not done by gut instinct. Being an expert does not mean that you are someone with a vested interest in something; it means you spend your life studying something. You’re not necessarily right–but you’re more likely to be right than someone who’s not spent their life studying it.
Brian Cox
As quoted in interview with Decca Aitkenhead, 'Prof Brian Cox: Being anti-expert – that’s the way back to the cave', The Guardian (2 Jul 2016)
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cave (17)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Cynicism (4)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Expert (67)  |  Expertise (8)  |  Gut Instinct (2)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Interest (416)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Process (439)  |  Professional (77)  |  Public (100)  |  Right (473)  |  Something (718)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Studying (70)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Through (846)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wrong (246)

[To] mechanical progress there is apparently no end: for as in the past so in the future, each step in any direction will remove limits and bring in past barriers which have till then blocked the way in other directions; and so what for the time may appear to be a visible or practical limit will turn out to be but a bend in the road.
Opening address to the Mechanical Science Section, Meeting of the British Association, Manchester. In Nature (15 Sep 1887), 36, 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Appear (122)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Bend (13)  |  Block (13)  |  Bring (95)  |  Direction (185)  |  End (603)  |  Future (467)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Practical (225)  |  Progress (492)  |  Remove (50)  |  Step (234)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Visible (87)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

On rencontre sa destinée souvent par des chemins qu’on prend pour l’éviter.
Man meets his destiny oft by the roads he takes to escape it.
In 'L’Horoscope', Fables, Vol. 8, 16. (1668–1679). Reprinted in Fables Choisies de La Fontaine (1730), 198. As translated in Thomas Benfield Harbottle and Colonel Philip Hugh Dalbiac, Dictionary of Quotations (1901), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Destiny (54)  |  Escape (85)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meet (36)  |  Often (109)

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: Pierre de Fermat: I just don’t have room here to give the full explanation.
Anonymous
[Note: Pierre de Fermat is famous for an enigmatic marginal note in his notebook, “I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.”]
Science quotes on:  |  Chicken (12)  |  Cross (20)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Full (68)  |  Give (208)  |  Joke (90)  |  Room (42)  |  Why (491)

A road across the United States; Let’s build it before we’re too old to enjoy it. [About the Lincoln Highway]
As quoted in the Lincoln Highway Association, The Lincoln Highway: the Story of a Crusade That Made Transportation History (1935), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Lincoln Highway (4)  |  Old (499)  |  State (505)  |  U.S.A. (7)

Across the road from my cabin was a huge clear-cut—hundreds of acres of massive spruce stumps interspersed with tiny Douglas firs—products of what they call “Reforestation,” which I guess makes the spindly firs en masse a “Reforest,” which makes an individual spindly fir a “Refir,” which means you could say that Weyerhauser, who owns the joint, has Refir Madness, since they think that sawing down 200-foot-tall spruces and replacing them with puling 2-foot Refirs is no different from farming beans or corn or alfalfa. They even call the towering spires they wipe from the Earth’s face forever a “crop”--as if they’d planted the virgin forest! But I'm just a fisherman and may be missing some deeper significance in their nomenclature and stranger treatment of primordial trees.
In David James Duncan, The River Why (1983), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Bean (3)  |  Cabin (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Corn (20)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deeper (4)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Douglas Fir (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Farming (8)  |  Fisherman (9)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joint (31)  |  Madness (33)  |  Massive (9)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Product (166)  |  Reforestation (6)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Sawing (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Significance (114)  |  Spire (5)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Stump (3)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Towering (11)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Tree (269)  |  Virgin (11)

Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of mind.
In Art (1913), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Alliance (5)  |  Art (680)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Ecstasy (9)  |  Escape (85)  |  Family (101)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Rapture (8)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Similar (36)  |  State (505)  |  Two (936)

At about the age of sixteen, I began to feel uneasy. My confidence in adults began to be shaken. They were not smarter than us kids. They just had fixed ideas and stuck to them even if they disagreed among themselves. They were dragging us along a road to an unknown destination; they had no goal, just something to escape from: nature. … It was better to begin to look for a safer, side track. I began to feel like a prisoner calmly preparing to jump off a train that was on a wrong track.
In Ch. 1, 'Farewell to Civilization', Fatu-Hiva (1974), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Age (509)  |  Biography (254)  |  Calm (32)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Destination (16)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Drag (8)  |  Escape (85)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fix (34)  |  Goal (155)  |  Idea (881)  |  Jump (31)  |  Kid (18)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Safe (61)  |  Shaken (3)  |  Side (236)  |  Smart (33)  |  Track (42)  |  Train (118)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Wrong (246)

Book-knowledge is a poor resource … In many cases, ignorance is a good thing: the mind retains its freedom of investigation and does not stray along roads that lead nowhither, suggested by one’s reading. … Ignorance can have its advantages; the new is found far from the beaten track.
In Jean-Henri Fabre and Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (trans.), The Life and Love of the Insect (1918), 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Beaten Track (4)  |  Book (413)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Good (906)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Poor (139)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Resource (74)  |  Retain (57)  |  Stray (7)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Track (42)

But as the wilderness areas are progressively exploited or “improve”, as the jeeps and bulldozers of uranium prospectors scar up the deserts and the roads are cut into the alpine timberlands, and as the remnants of the unspoiled and natural world are progressively eroded, every such loss is a little death in me. In us.
Letter (3 Dec 1960) written to David E. Pesonen of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Collected in 'Coda: Wilderness Letter', The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West (1969), 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Alpine (2)  |  Bulldozer (6)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Desert (59)  |  Exploit (19)  |  Improve (64)  |  Little (717)  |  Loss (117)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Old West (2)  |  Progressively (4)  |  Prospector (5)  |  Remnant (7)  |  Scar (8)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  World (1850)

But I believe that there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. We do not find signposts at cross-roads, but our own scouts erect them, to help the rest.
Max Born
In Experiment and Theory in Physics (1943), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Do (1905)  |  Epistemological (2)  |  Erect (6)  |  Error (339)  |  Find (1014)  |  Help (116)  |  High (370)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Rest (287)  |  Scout (3)  |  Signpost (3)  |  Trial (59)  |  Trial And Error (5)  |  Way (1214)

Descartes constructed as noble a road of science, from the point at which he found geometry to that to which he carried it, as Newton himself did after him. ... He carried this spirit of geometry and invention into optics, which under him became a completely new art.
A Philosophical Dictionary: from the French? (2nd Ed.,1824), Vol. 5, 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Completely (137)  |  Construct (129)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Himself (461)  |  Invention (400)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Noble (93)  |  Optics (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Spirit (278)

Education consists in co-operating with what is already inside a child's mind … The best way to learn geometry is to follow the road which the human race originally followed: Do things, make things, notice things, arrange things, and only then reason about things.
In Mathematician's Delight (1943), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Best (467)  |  Child (333)  |  Consist (223)  |  Cooperate (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Follow (389)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Inside (30)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Notice (81)  |  Original (61)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

Here is no water but only rocks
Rocks and no water and the sandy road.
From poem, 'The Waste Land' (1922), in The Waste Land: And Other Poems (1958), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Rock (176)  |  Sand (63)  |  Water (503)

Here we come to a new and peculiar street railway … There is no steam on board. You ask how is this train propelled? Between the track and under ground is a cable running upon rollers for the length of the road…
In Travels with Jottings: From Midland to the Pacific (1880), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Cable (11)  |  Ground (222)  |  Andrew Smith Hallidie (2)  |  Length (24)  |  New (1273)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Railway (19)  |  Roller (3)  |  Running (61)  |  San Francisco (3)  |  Steam (81)  |  Street (25)  |  Track (42)  |  Train (118)  |  Transport (31)

History is not a toboggan slide, but a road to be reconsidered and even retraced
In 'Three Notes: On Female Suffrage', The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton (2008), Vol. 1, 353
Science quotes on:  |  History (716)  |  Reconsideration (3)  |  Retrace (3)  |  Slide (5)

I have long been interested in landscape history, and when younger and more robust I used to do much tramping of the English landscape in search of ancient field systems, drove roads, indications of prehistoric settlement. Towns and cities, too, which always retain the ghost of their earlier incarnations beneath today's concrete and glass.
From 'An Interview With Penelope Lively', in a Reading Guide to the book The Photograph on the publisher's Penguin website.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Beneath (68)  |  City (87)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earlier (9)  |  England (43)  |  Field (378)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Glass (94)  |  History (716)  |  Incarnation (3)  |  Indication (33)  |  Interest (416)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Retain (57)  |  Search (175)  |  Settlement (3)  |  System (545)  |  Today (321)  |  Town (30)  |  Younger (21)

I have no doubt but that my engines will propel boats against the current of the Mississippi, and wagons on turnpike roads, with great profit.
Address to Lancaster turnpike company (25 Sep 1804). As cited in 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Current (122)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Engine (99)  |  Great (1610)  |  Mississippi (7)  |  Profit (56)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Turnpike (2)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Will (2350)

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
In Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993), 134.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cross (20)  |  Destiny (54)

I have sat by night beside a cold lake
And touched things smoother than moonlight on still water,
But the moon on this cloud sea is not human,
And here is no shore, no intimacy,
Only the start of space, the road to suns.
Trans Canada
Science quotes on:  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cold (115)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intimacy (6)  |  Lake (36)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moonlight (5)  |  Night (133)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shore (25)  |  Sit (51)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Space (523)  |  Start (237)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Water (503)

I should rejoice to see mathematics taught with that life and animation which the presence and example of her young and buoyant sister [natural and experimental science] could not fail to impart, short roads preferred to long ones.
From Presidential Address (1869) to the British Association, Exeter, Section A, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of Lames Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 657.
Science quotes on:  |  Animation (6)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimental Science (3)  |  Fail (191)  |  Impart (24)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Presence (63)  |  Rejoice (11)  |  Science And Mathematics (10)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Sister (8)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Young (253)

I sometimes think there is a malign force loose in the universe that is the social equivalent of cancer, and it’s plastic. It infiltrates everything. It’s metastasis. It gets into every single pore of productive life. I mean there won’t be anything that isn’t made of plastic before long. They’ll be paving the roads with plastic before they’re done. Our bodies, our skeletons, will be replaced with plastic.
From Robert Begiebing, 'Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer', collected in J. Michael Lennon (ed.), Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988), 321.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Everything (489)  |  Force (497)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Malign (2)  |  Mean (810)  |  Paving (2)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Pore (7)  |  Productive (37)  |  Productivity (23)  |  Single (365)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

I would not want to generalize to the extent that adversity is the only road to effective innovative science, or art, but the progress of science is often spectacularly disorderly. James Joyce once commented that he survived by “cunning and exile”.
In 'Homo Scientificus According to Beckett', collected in William Beranek, Jr. (ed.),Science, Scientists, and Society, (1972), 135-. Excerpted in Ann E. Kammer, Science, Sex, and Society (1979), 278.
Science quotes on:  |  Adversity (6)  |  Art (680)  |  Comment (12)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Effective (68)  |  Exile (6)  |  Innovative (3)  |  James Joyce (5)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Science (39)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Survive (87)

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
Paraphrase of a longer quote, an exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, beginning “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” on the Lewis Carroll Quotes page of this website. Paraphrased quote as in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 246. Also paraphrased in the refrain, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there,” to the song Any Road (1988) by George Harrison.
Science quotes on:  |  Know (1538)  |  Will (2350)

Improvement makes straight road, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
In 'Proverbs', The Poems: With Specimens of the Prose Writings of William Blake (1885), 281.
Science quotes on:  |  Crooked (3)  |  Genius (301)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Straight (75)

In her book My Life With the Chimpanzees, Goodall told the story of “Mike,” a chimp who maintained his dominance by kicking a series of kerosene cans ahead of him as he moved down a road, creating confusion and noise that made his rivals flee and cower. She told me she would be thinking of Mike as she watched [Donald Trump in] the upcoming debates.
In magazine article by 'When Donald Meets Hillary', The Atlantic (Oct 2016). The reporter stated “Jane Goodall … told me shortly before Trump won the GOP nomination.”
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Can (2)  |  Chimpanzee (14)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Create (245)  |  Debate (40)  |  Dominance (5)  |  Down (455)  |  Flee (9)  |  Jane Goodall (15)  |  Kick (11)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Noise (40)  |  Rival (20)  |  Series (153)  |  Story (122)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |   Donald Trump (3)  |  Watch (118)

In India we have clear evidence that administrative statistics had reached a high state of organization before 300 B.C. In the Arthasastra of Kautilya … the duties of the Gopa, the village accountant, [include] “by setting up boundaries to villages, by numbering plots of grounds as cultivated, uncultivated, plains, wet lands, gardens, vegetable gardens, fences (váta), forests altars, temples of gods, irrigation works, cremation grounds, feeding houses (sattra), places where water is freely supplied to travellers (prapá), places of pilgrimage, pasture grounds and roads, and thereby fixing the boundaries of various villages, of fields, of forests, and of roads, he shall register gifts, sales, charities, and remission of taxes regarding fields.”
Editorial, introducing the new statistics journal of the Indian Statistical Institute, Sankhayā (1933), 1, No. 1. Also reprinted in Sankhyā: The Indian Journal of Statistics (Feb 2003), 65, No. 1, viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Accountant (4)  |  Administration (15)  |  Altar (11)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Charity (13)  |  Clear (111)  |  Cremation (2)  |  Cultivated (7)  |  Duty (71)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fence (11)  |  Field (378)  |  Fix (34)  |  Forest (161)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  House (143)  |  Include (93)  |  India (23)  |  Irrigation (12)  |  Land (131)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Pasture (15)  |  Pilgrimage (4)  |  Place (192)  |  Plain (34)  |  Plot (11)  |  Reach (286)  |  Register (22)  |  Remission (3)  |  Sale (3)  |  Setting (44)  |  State (505)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Tax (27)  |  Temple (45)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Uncultivated (2)  |  Various (205)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Village (13)  |  Water (503)  |  Wet (6)  |  Work (1402)

It may be unpopular and out-of-date to say—but I do not think that a scientific result which gives us a better understanding of the world and makes it more harmonious in our eyes should be held in lower esteem than, say, an invention which reduces the cost of paving roads, or improves household plumbing.
From final remarks in 'The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics' (1944), collected in Leonard Linsky (ed.), Semantics and the Philosophy of Language: A Collection of Readings (1952), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Cost (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Esteem (18)  |  Eye (440)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Household (8)  |  Improve (64)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lower (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Paving (2)  |  Plumbing (5)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unpopular (4)  |  World (1850)

Logic teaches us that on such and such a road we are sure of not meeting an obstacle; it does not tell us which is the road that leads to the desired end. For this, it is necessary to see the end from afar, and the faculty which teaches us to see is intuition. Without it, the geometrician would be like a writer well up in grammar but destitute of ideas.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Afar (7)  |  Desire (212)  |  Destitute (2)  |  End (603)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Geometrician (6)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Lead (391)  |  Logic (311)  |  Meet (36)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  See (1094)  |  Teach (299)  |  Tell (344)  |  Writer (90)

May the road rise to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Face (214)  |  Fall (243)  |  Field (378)  |  God (776)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hold (96)  |  Meet (36)  |  Palm (5)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rise (169)  |  Shine (49)  |  Soft (30)  |  Sun (407)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wind (141)

Nature! … She tosses her creatures out of nothingness, and tells them not whence they came, nor whither they go. It is their business to run, she knows the road.
As quoted by T.H. Huxley, in Norman Lockyer (ed.), 'Nature: Aphorisms by Goethe', Nature (1870), 1, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Creature (242)  |  Know (1538)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nothingness (12)  |  Run (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Toss (8)  |  Whither (11)

Of agitating good roads there is no end, and perhaps this is as it should be, but I think you'll agree that it is high time to agitate less and build more. [Here is] a plan whereby the automobile industry of America can build a magnificent “Appian Way” from New York to San Francisco, having it completed by May 1, 1915 and present it to the people of the United States.
From letter (1912) to Elbert Hubbard. In the Lincoln Highway Association, The Lincoln Highway: the Story of a Crusade That Made Transportation History (1935), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Build (211)  |  Completed (30)  |  End (603)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Industry (159)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  People (1031)  |  Plan (122)  |  Present (630)  |  San Francisco (3)  |  State (505)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  U.S.A. (7)  |  Way (1214)

Once you have learned to fly your plane, it is far less fatiguing to fly than it is to drive a car. You don’t have to watch every second for cats, dogs, children, lights, road signs, ladies with baby carriages and citizens who drive out in the middle of the block against the lights... Nobody who has not been up in the sky on a glorious morning can possibly imagine the way a pilot feels in free heaven.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Baby (29)  |  Block (13)  |  Car (75)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Cat (52)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Dog (70)  |  Drive (61)  |  Far (158)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fly (153)  |  Free (239)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Lady (12)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Less (105)  |  Light (635)  |  Middle (19)  |  Morning (98)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Pilot (13)  |  Plane (22)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Second (66)  |  Sign (63)  |  Sky (174)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)

One summer day, while I was walking along the country road on the farm where I was born, a section of the stone wall opposite me, and not more than three or four yards distant, suddenly fell down. Amid the general stillness and immobility about me the effect was quite startling. ... It was the sudden summing up of half a century or more of atomic changes in the material of the wall. A grain or two of sand yielded to the pressure of long years, and gravity did the rest.
Under the Apple-Trees (1916), 105.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Country (269)  |  Down (455)  |  Effect (414)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Fall (243)  |  Farm (28)  |  General (521)  |  Grain (50)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Long (778)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sand (63)  |  Section (11)  |  Startling (15)  |  Stillness (5)  |  Stone (168)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Sum (103)  |  Summer (56)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wall (71)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)  |  Yielding (2)

Results rarely specify their causes unambiguously. If we have no direct evidence of fossils or human chronicles, if we are forced to infer a process only from its modern results, then we are usually stymied or reduced to speculation about probabilities. For many roads lead to almost any Rome.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Chronicle (6)  |  Direct (228)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Force (497)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Infer (12)  |  Lead (391)  |  Modern (402)  |  Probability (135)  |  Process (439)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Result (700)  |  Rome (19)  |  Specify (6)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Unambiguously (2)  |  Usually (176)

Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.
In Pensées. As translated by W.F. Trotter in Blaise Pascal: Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works (1910), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Desire (212)  |  Move (223)  |  River (140)  |  Whither (11)

Science and technology, like all original creations of the human spirit, are unpredictable. If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.
In Disturbing the Universe (1979), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Ahead (21)  |  Bad (185)  |  Big (55)  |  Concern (239)  |  Creation (350)  |  Damnation (4)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enough (341)  |  Far (158)  |  Forward (104)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Know (1538)  |  Label (11)  |  Lead (391)  |  Live (650)  |  Push (66)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Reliable (13)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  See (1094)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Technology (281)  |  Toy (22)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Wisely (2)

Science only offers three kinds of interest: 1. Technical applications. 2. A game of chess. 3. A road to God. (Attractions are added to the game of chess in the shape of competitions, prizes, and medals.)
In Gravity and Grace, (1947, 1952), 186-187.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Chess (27)  |  Competition (45)  |  Game (104)  |  God (776)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kind (564)  |  Medal (4)  |  Offer (142)  |  Prize (13)  |  Science And God (5)  |  Technology (281)

Simultaneous discovery is utterly commonplace, and it was only the rarity of scientists, not the inherent improbability of the phenomenon, that made it remarkable in the past. Scientists on the same road may be expected to arrive at the same destination, often not far apart.
From review '[Arthur] Koestler’s Theory of the Creative Act: “The Act of Creation”', in New Statesman (19 Jun 1964). According to Michael Scammell in his biography (Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic (2009), 491 and 654), Medawar eviscerated the book as “amateurish” with “overstretched metaphors” and “fatuous epigrams” while Koestler’s psychological insights were “in the style of the nineteenth century.” The review, with follow-ups, were reprinted in Medawar’s The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967), 85-98.
Science quotes on:  |  Apart (7)  |  Arriving (2)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Destination (16)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Far (158)  |  Improbability (11)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Rarity (11)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Utterly (15)

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.
Letter (3 Dec 1960) written to David E. Pesonen of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Collected in 'Coda: Wilderness Letter', The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West (1969), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  American (56)  |  Book (413)  |  Case (102)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Clean (52)  |  Comic (5)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Country (269)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dirty (17)  |  Drive (61)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Forest (161)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Last (425)  |  Let (64)  |  Member (42)  |  Never (1089)  |  Noise (40)  |  Pave (8)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Push (66)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Silence (62)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Stink (8)  |  Stream (83)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Virgin (11)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoo (9)

The argument of the ‘long view’ may be correct in some meaninglessly abstract sense, but it represents a fundamental mistake in categories and time scales. Our only legitimate long view extends to our children and our children’s children’s children–hundreds or a few thousands of years down the road. If we let the slaughter continue, they will share a bleak world with rats, dogs, cockroaches, pigeons, and mosquitoes. A potential recovery millions of years later has no meaning at our appropriate scale.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Argument (145)  |  Bleak (2)  |  Category (19)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Cockroach (6)  |  Continue (179)  |  Correct (95)  |  Dog (70)  |  Down (455)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hundreds (6)  |  Late (119)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Let (64)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Millions (17)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Pigeon (8)  |  Potential (75)  |  Rat (37)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Represent (157)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sense (785)  |  Share (82)  |  Slaughter (8)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The art of discovering the causes of phenomena, or true hypothesis, is like the art of deciphering, in which an ingenious conjecture greatly shortens the road.
In Gottfried Leibniz and Alfred Fideon Langley (trans.), 'Leibniz’s Critique of Locke', New Essays Concerning Human Understanding (1896), Book 4, Chap. 12, 526.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Decipher (7)  |  Discover (571)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Shorten (5)  |  True (239)

The day dawned grey and dreary
The sky made of silver
While the first snowflakes
Began to fall.
A lone bird chirped
In a tree bare of its leaves.
Standing on a lonely road
I stood watching as the world
Started changing.
And I embraced the winter
With memories of summer’s warmth
Still in my heart.
And soon the snowflakes
Began to dance about me
And I twirled around and around
As everything
Turned into a winter wonderland.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bare (33)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bird (163)  |  Change (639)  |  Dance (35)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Dreary (6)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fall (243)  |  First (1302)  |  Grey (10)  |  Heart (243)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lone (3)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Memory (144)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Snowflake (15)  |  Soon (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  Start (237)  |  Still (614)  |  Summer (56)  |  Tree (269)  |  Turn (454)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Watch (118)  |  Winter (46)  |  World (1850)

The forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy.
In Art (1913), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Art (680)  |  Ecstasy (9)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Form (976)  |  Inexhaustible (26)  |  Lead (391)  |  Same (166)  |  World (1850)

The Lincoln Highway is to be something more than a road. It will be a road with a personality, a distinctive work of which the Americans of future generations can point with pride - an economic but also artistic triumph. (1914)
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Artistic (24)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Economic (84)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Lincoln Highway (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Personality (66)  |  Point (584)  |  Pride (84)  |  Something (718)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars.
In The View from Serendip (1977), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  First (1302)  |  Milestone (2)  |  Moon (252)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)

The only royal road to elementary geometry is ingenuity.
In The Development of Mathematics (1940, 1945), 322.
Science quotes on:  |  Elementary (98)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Road (4)

The road to a clinic goes through the pathologic museum and not through the apothecary's shop.
Quoted without further citation in The New Encyclopedia Britannica (1986), Vol. 5, 566.
Science quotes on:  |  Apothecary (10)  |  Clinic (4)  |  Drug (61)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Museum (40)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Shop (11)  |  Through (846)

The road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Diminution (5)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Lie (370)  |  Organize (33)  |  Prosperity (31)  |  Work (1402)

The road to success is always under construction.
Anonymous
Widely quoted, with various attributions, but original author probably unknown. Seen at least as early as 1963 as, in an epigraph, The Office Economist (1963), 45, No. 3, 171.
Science quotes on:  |  Civil Engineering (5)  |  Construction (114)  |  Success (327)

The roads by which men arrive at their insights into celestial matters seem to me almost as worthy of wonder as those matters themselves.
Quoted in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Feb 1959), 59, citing tr. Arthur Koestler, in Encounter (Dec 1958). Also in The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler (1960), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrive (40)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Insight (107)  |  Matter (821)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Worthy (35)

There are no royal roads to knowledge, and we can only advance to new and important truths along the rugged path of experience, guided by cautious induction.
In 'Report of the Secretary', Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1856 (1857), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Cautious (4)  |  Experience (494)  |  Guide (107)  |  Important (229)  |  Induction (81)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  New (1273)  |  Path (159)  |  Royal (56)  |  Rugged (7)  |  Truth (1109)

There are no shade trees on the road to success.
Anonymous
In E.C. McKenzie, 14,000 Quips and Quotes for Speakers, Writers, Editors, Preachers, and Teachers (1990), 482.
Science quotes on:  |  Shade (35)  |  Success (327)  |  Tree (269)

There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 249
Science quotes on:  |  Heart (243)  |  Hide (70)  |  Lead (391)  |  Place (192)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Travel (125)  |  Unknown (195)

There is no royal road to learning. But it is equally an error to confine attention to technical processes, excluding consideration of general ideas. Here lies the road to pedantry.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Equally (129)  |  Error (339)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  General (521)  |  Idea (881)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lie (370)  |  Pedantry (5)  |  Process (439)  |  Royal (56)  |  Technical (53)

There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.
Karl Marx
Preface to the French Edition, Das Capital (1872). In Karl Marx, Capital: The Process of Capitalist Production, translated from the 3rd German edition by S. Moore and E. Aveling (1967), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Climb (39)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dread (13)  |  Gaining (2)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Path (159)  |  Royal (56)  |  Steep (7)  |  Summit (27)

There is probably no other science which presents such different appearances to one who cultivates it and to one who does not, as mathematics. To this person it is ancient, venerable, and complete; a body of dry, irrefutable, unambiguous reasoning. To the mathematician, on the other hand, his science is yet in the purple bloom of vigorous youth, everywhere stretching out after the “attainable but unattained” and full of the excitement of nascent thoughts; its logic is beset with ambiguities, and its analytic processes, like Bunyan’s road, have a quagmire on one side and a deep ditch on the other and branch off into innumerable by-paths that end in a wilderness.
In 'The Theory of Transformation Groups', (A review of Erster Abschnitt, Theorie der Transformationsgruppen (1888)), Bulletin New York Mathematical Society (1893), 2 (First series), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attain (126)  |  Bloom (11)  |  Body (557)  |  Branch (155)  |  John Bunyan (5)  |  Complete (209)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Ditch (2)  |  Dry (65)  |  End (603)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Irrefutable (5)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nascent (4)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Person (366)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Purple (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Side (236)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unambiguous (6)  |  Venerable (7)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Youth (109)

This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call serendipity, a very expressive word, which as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity?
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (28 Jan 1754), in W. S. Lewis, Warren Hunting Smith and George L. Lam (eds.), Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann (1960), Vol. 20, 407-408.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Better (493)  |  Blind (98)  |  Call (781)  |  Definition (238)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eating (46)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Expressive (6)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fairy (10)  |  Grass (49)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Instance (33)  |  Kind (564)  |  Making (300)  |  Mule (2)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Prince (13)  |  Quest (39)  |  Read (308)  |  Right (473)  |  Sagacity (11)  |  Serendipity (17)  |  Side (236)  |  Silly (17)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Traveled (2)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Throughout history, engineers have served their neighbours, their towns and their countries by making tools, machines and countless other things that improve every aspect of life. From information technology to medical science and mining, from building roads to space travel, engineers are working to make a difference to our standard of living, and with it our health, wealth and happiness.
From a speech by The Queen at The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (25 Jun 2013).
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Build (211)  |  Countless (39)  |  Country (269)  |  Difference (355)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Health (210)  |  History (716)  |  Improve (64)  |  Information (173)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Mining (22)  |  Neighbour (7)  |  Serve (64)  |  Space Travel (23)  |  Standard Of Living (5)  |  Technology (281)  |  Tool (129)  |  Town (30)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Work (1402)

Throughout history, engineers have served their neighbours, their towns and their countries by making tools, machines and countless other things that improve every aspect of life. From information technology to medical science and mining, from building roads to space travel, engineers are working to make a difference to our standard of living, and with it our health, wealth and happiness. At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a noble profession.
In Speech (25 Jun 2013), for the 2013 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Countless (39)  |  Country (269)  |  Creative (144)  |  Difference (355)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Find (1014)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Health (210)  |  Heart (243)  |  History (716)  |  Improve (64)  |  Information (173)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mining (22)  |  Neighbour (7)  |  Noble (93)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practical (225)  |  Profession (108)  |  Serve (64)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Travel (23)  |  Standard Of Living (5)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Tool (129)  |  Town (30)  |  Travel (125)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Work (1402)

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.
Ayn Rand
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Century (319)  |  Down (455)  |  First (1302)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Step (234)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Vision (127)

To build a road is so much simpler than to think of what the country really needs. A roadless marsh is seemingly as worthless to the alphabetical conservationist as an undrained one was to the empire-builders. Solitude, the one natural resource still undowered of alphabets, is so far recognized as valuable only by ornithologists and cranes. Thus always does history, whether or marsh or market place, end in paradox. The ultimate value in these marshes is wildness, and the crane is wildness incarnate.
In 'Wisconsin', A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (1949, 1987), 101.
Science quotes on:  |  Alphabet (14)  |  Builder (16)  |  Conservationist (5)  |  Country (269)  |  Crane (4)  |  Empire (17)  |  End (603)  |  History (716)  |  Incarnate (2)  |  Marketplace (4)  |  Marsh (10)  |  Natural Resource (23)  |  Need (320)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Seeming (10)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Value (393)  |  Wildness (6)  |  Worthless (22)

To have a railroad, there must have been first the discoverers, who found out the properties of wood and iron, fire and water, and their latent power to carry men over the earth; next the organizers, who put these elements together, surveyed the route, planned the structure, set men to grade the hill, to fill the valley, and pave the road with iron bars; and then the administrators, who after all that is done, procure the engines, engineers, conductors, ticket-distributors, and the rest of the “hands;” they buy the coal and see it is not wasted, fix the rates of fare, calculate the savings, and distribute the dividends. The discoverers and organizers often fare hard in the world, lean men, ill-clad and suspected, often laughed at, while the administrator is thought the greater man, because he rides over their graves and pays the dividends, where the organizer only called for the assessments, and the discoverer told what men called a dream. What happens in a railroad happens also in a Church, or a State.
Address at the Melodeon, Boston (5 Mar 1848), 'A Discourse occasioned by the Death of John Quincy Adams'. Collected in Discourses of Politics: The Collected Works of Theodore Parker: Part 4 (1863), 139. Note: Ralph Waldo Emerson earlier used the phrase “pave the road with iron bars,” in Nature (1836), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Assessment (3)  |  Bar (9)  |  Buy (21)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Call (781)  |  Carry (130)  |  Church (64)  |  Coal (64)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Dividend (3)  |  Dream (222)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Fare (5)  |  Fill (67)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Fix (34)  |  Grade (12)  |  Grave (52)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hand (149)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hill (23)  |  Iron (99)  |  Latent (13)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Pave (8)  |  Pay (45)  |  Plan (122)  |  Power (771)  |  Procure (6)  |  Property (177)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Rate (31)  |  Rest (287)  |  Ride (23)  |  Route (16)  |  Saving (20)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  State (505)  |  Structure (365)  |  Survey (36)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thought (995)  |  Ticket (5)  |  Together (392)  |  Valley (37)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)  |  Wood (97)  |  World (1850)

Traveler, there are no roads. Roads are made by walking.
As quoted in, for example, James N. Gardner, Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution (2003), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Research (753)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Walk (138)

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
In poem, 'The Road Not Taken', Mountain Interval (1916), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Diverge (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Research (753)  |  Travel (125)  |  Traveled (2)  |  Two (936)  |  Wood (97)

We are not very pleased when we are forced to accept a mathematical truth by virtue of a complicated chain of formal conclusions and computations, which we traverse blindly, link by link, feeling our way by touch. We want first an overview of the aim and of the road; we want to understand the idea of the proof, the deeper context.
Unterrichtsblätter für Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften (1932), 38, 177-188. As translated by Abe Shenitzer, in 'Part I. Topology and Abstract Algebra as Two Roads of Mathematical Comprehension', The American Mathematical Monthly (May 1995), 102, No. 7, 453.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Aim (175)  |  Blind (98)  |  Chain (51)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Computation (28)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Context (31)  |  Deep (241)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Formal (37)  |  Idea (881)  |  Link (48)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Overview (2)  |  Please (68)  |  Proof (304)  |  Touch (146)  |  Traverse (5)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We'll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.
From First Inaugural Address (20 Jan 2009)
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Bind (26)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Build (211)  |  Car (75)  |  Care (203)  |  College (71)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Cost (94)  |  Demand (131)  |  Digital (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electric (76)  |  Factory (20)  |  Feed (31)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Harness (25)  |  Health (210)  |  Health Care (10)  |  Internet (24)  |  Line (100)  |  Lower (11)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Place (192)  |  Quality (139)  |  Raise (38)  |  Restore (12)  |  Rightful (3)  |  Run (158)  |  School (227)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sun (407)  |  Technology (281)  |  Together (392)  |  Transform (74)  |  University (130)  |  Wield (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonder (251)

Western field-work conjures up images of struggle on horseback ... –toughing it out on one canteen a day as you labor up and down mountains. The value of a site is supposedly correlated with the difficulty of getting there. This, of course, is romantic drivel. Ease of access is no measure of importance. The famous La Brea tar pits are right in downtown Los Angeles. To reach the Clarkia lake beds, you turn off the main road at Buzzard’s Roost Trophy Company and drive the remaining fifty yards right up to the site.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Angeles (4)  |  Bed (25)  |  Buzzard (3)  |  Company (63)  |  Conjuring (3)  |  Correlate (7)  |  Course (413)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Down (455)  |  Downtown (3)  |  Drive (61)  |  Ease (40)  |  Famous (12)  |  Field (378)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Horseback (3)  |  Image (97)  |  Importance (299)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lake (36)  |  Los (4)  |  Main (29)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Pit (20)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Right (473)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Roost (3)  |  Site (19)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Supposedly (2)  |  Trophy (3)  |  Turn (454)  |  Value (393)  |  Western (45)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yard (10)

When asked what it was like to set about proving something, the mathematician likened proving a theorem to seeing the peak of a mountain and trying to climb to the top. One establishes a base camp and begins scaling the mountain’s sheer face, encountering obstacles at every turn, often retracing one’s steps and struggling every foot of the journey. Finally when the top is reached, one stands examining the peak, taking in the view of the surrounding countryside and then noting the automobile road up the other side!
Space-filler in The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal (Nov 1980), 11, No. 5, 295.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Base (120)  |  Begin (275)  |  Camp (12)  |  Climb (39)  |  Countryside (5)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Establish (63)  |  Examine (84)  |  Face (214)  |  Journey (48)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peak (20)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reach (286)  |  Retrace (3)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Set (400)  |  Sheer (9)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Top (100)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  View (496)

When I started on this problem I surveyed the field and selected the best road, regardless of the roads which others have taken. I knew the direction in which others had attempted to solve the problem, and was careful not to fall into the same rut which had led every previous effort into failure and ruin.
From short Speech at the Chamberlain Hotel, Washington, D.C. (Feb 1885), concluding the exhibition of his own Linotype invention. As given in Carl Schlesinger (ed.), 'Mr. Mergenthaler’s Speech', The Biography of Ottmar Merganthaler: Inventor of the Linotype (1989), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Best (467)  |  Careful (28)  |  Direction (185)  |  Effort (243)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fall (243)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lead (391)  |  Previous (17)  |  Problem (731)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Rut (2)  |  Same (166)  |  Select (45)  |  Solve (145)  |  Start (237)  |  Survey (36)

When the uncultured man sees a stone in the road it tells him no story other than the fact that he sees a stone … The scientist looking at the same stone perhaps will stop, and with a hammer break it open, when the newly exposed faces of the rock will have written upon them a history that is as real to him as the printed page.
In Nature’s Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Culture (157)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hammer (26)  |  History (716)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Page (35)  |  Print (20)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stop (89)  |  Story (122)  |  Tell (344)  |  Telling (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)


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.