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: “Environmental extremists ... wouldn�t let you build a house unless it looked like a bird�s nest.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index S > Category: Somehow

Somehow Quotes (48 quotes)

[O]ne might ask why, in a galaxy of a few hundred billion stars, the aliens are so intent on coming to Earth at all. It would be as if every vertebrate in North America somehow felt drawn to a particular house in Peoria, Illinois. Are we really that interesting?
Quoted in 'Do Aliens Exist in the Milky Way', PBS web page for WGBH Nova, 'Origins.'
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  America (143)  |  Ask (420)  |  Billion (104)  |  Come (4)  |  Coming (114)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Intention (46)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  North America (5)  |  Particular (80)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Why (491)

[The science of cosmology is] closest to the soul because it has to do with origins, and that somehow generates strong opinions.
As quoted in John Noble Wilford, 'Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers Quest', New York Times (12 Mar 1991), C10.
Science quotes on:  |  Close (77)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Generate (16)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Origin (250)  |  Soul (235)  |  Strong (182)

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height, spots a man down below and asks,“Excuse me, can you help me? I promised to return the balloon to its owner, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below says: “You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 350 feet above mean sea level and 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude.”
“You must be an engineer,” says the balloonist.
“I am,” replies the man.“How did you know?”
“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”
The man below says, “You must be a manager.”
“I am,” replies the balloonist,“but how did you know?”
“Well,” says the engineer,“you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”
Anonymous
In Jon Fripp, Michael Fripp and Deborah Fripp, Speaking of Science (2000), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Ask (420)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Correct (95)  |  Degree (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Help (116)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Information (173)  |  Joke (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Latitude (6)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manager (6)  |  Mean (810)  |  Must (1525)  |  Problem (731)  |  Promise (72)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Return (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Level (5)  |  Solve (145)  |  Still (614)

Anybody who looks at living organisms knows perfectly well that they can produce other organisms like themselves. This is their normal function, they wouldn’t exist if they didn’t do this, and it’s not plausible that this is the reason why they abound in the world. In other words, living organisms are very complicated aggregations of elementary parts, and by any reasonable theory of probability or thermodynamics highly improbable. That they should occur in the world at all is a miracle of the first magnitude; the only thing which removes, or mitigates, this miracle is that they reproduce themselves. Therefore, if by any peculiar accident there should ever be one of them, from there on the rules of probability do not apply, and there will be many of them, at least if the milieu is reasonable. But a reasonable milieu is already a thermodynamically much less improbable thing. So, the operations of probability somehow leave a loophole at this point, and it is by the process of self-reproduction that they are pierced.
From lecture series on self-replicating machines at the University of Illinois, Lecture 5 (Dec 1949), 'Re-evaluation of the Problems of Complicated Automata—Problems of Hierarchy and Evolution', Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Accident (92)  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Already (226)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Apply (170)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Exist (458)  |  First (1302)  |  Function (235)  |  Improbable (15)  |  In Other Words (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Loophole (2)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Milieu (5)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Mitigate (5)  |  Normal (29)  |  Occur (151)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pierce (4)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Probability (135)  |  Process (439)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remove (50)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Rule (307)  |  Self (268)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

As children we all possess a natural, uninhibited curiosity, a hunger for explanation, which seems to die slowly as we age—suppressed, I suppose, by the high value we place on conformity and by the need not to appear ignorant.
It betokens a conviction that somehow science is innately incomprehensible. It precludes reaching deeper, thereby denying the profound truth that understanding enriches experience, that explanation vastly enhances the beauty of the natural world in the eye of the beholder.
In Toward the Habit of Truth (1990).
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Children (201)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Eye (440)  |  High (370)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Natural (810)  |  Possess (157)  |  Profound (105)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value (393)  |  World (1850)

Eventually, it becomes hard to take the selections seriously, because we have no idea what factors are taken into consideration, except that somehow, it ends with only white and Asian men receiving the [Nobel] prize.
As quoted in Jesse Emspak, 'Are the Nobel Prizes Missing Female Scientists?' (5 Oct 2016), on LiveScience website.
Science quotes on:  |  Asian (3)  |  Become (821)  |  Consideration (143)  |  End (603)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Factor (47)  |  Hard (246)  |  Idea (881)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Receive (117)  |  Selection (130)  |  Serious (98)  |  White (132)

He leads a new crusade, his bald head glistening... One somehow pities him, despite his so palpable imbecilities... But let no one, laughing at him, underestimate the magic that lies in his black, malignant eye, his frayed but still eloquent voice. He can shake and inflame these poor ignoramuses as no other man among us...
[Describing William Jennings Bryan, orator, at the Scopes Monkey Trial.]
Henry Louis Mencken and S.T. Joshi (ed.), H.L. Mencken on Religion (2002), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  William Jennings Bryan (20)  |  Crusade (6)  |  Eye (440)  |  Frayed (2)  |  Glistening (2)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Magic (92)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monkey (57)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Poor (139)  |  Scope (44)  |  Scopes Monkey Trial (9)  |  Shake (43)  |  Still (614)  |  Trial (59)  |  Underestimate (7)

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.
'Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible'. In Sidney Hook, et. al. On the Barricades: Religion and Free Inquiry in Conflict (1989), 329.
Science quotes on:  |  Agnostic (10)  |  Atheist (16)  |  Better (493)  |  Biography (254)  |  Creature (242)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  God (776)  |  Humanist (8)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)  |  Waste (109)  |  Year (963)

I did try “to make things clear,” first to myself (an important point) and then to my students and somehow to make “these dry bones live.”
His response on his 80th birthday (1929) recognition of his mathematical contributions and teachings by his former students. As quoted by R.T. Glazebrook in Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society (Dec 1935), 392.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Bone (101)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Dry (65)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Live (650)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Myself (211)  |  Point (584)  |  Student (317)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)

I learned a lot of different things from different schools. MIT is a very good place…. It has developed for itself a spirit, so that every member of the whole place thinks that it’s the most wonderful place in the world—it’s the center, somehow, of scientific and technological development in the United States, if not the world … and while you don’t get a good sense of proportion there, you do get an excellent sense of being with it and in it, and having motivation and desire to keep on…
From Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character (1985), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Center (35)  |  Desire (212)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  Development (441)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Good (906)  |  Keep (104)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lot (151)  |  M.I.T. (2)  |  Member (42)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motivation (28)  |  Place (192)  |  Proportion (140)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Spirit (278)  |  State (505)  |  Technological (62)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  United States (31)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

I think we are beginning to suspect that man is not a tiny cog that doesn’t really make much difference to the running of the huge machine but rather that there is a much more intimate tie between man and the universe than we heretofore suspected. … [Consider if] the particles and their properties are not somehow related to making man possible. Man, the start of the analysis, man, the end of the analysis—because the physical world is, in some deep sense, tied to the human being.
In The Intellectual Digest (Jun 1973), as quoted and cited in Mark Chandos, 'Philosophical Essay: Story Theory", Kosmoautikon: Exodus From Sapiens (2015).
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cog (7)  |  Consider (428)  |  Deep (241)  |  Difference (355)  |  End (603)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Intimate (21)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Possible (560)  |  Property (177)  |  Running (61)  |  Sense (785)  |  Start (237)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tie (42)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

In 1944 Erwin Schroedinger, stimulated intellectually by Max Delbruck, published a little book called What is life? It was an inspiration to the first of the molecular biologists, and has been, along with Delbruck himself, credited for directing the research during the next decade that solved the mystery of how 'like begat like.' Max was awarded this Prize in 1969, and rejoicing in it, he also lamented that the work for which he was honored before all the peoples of the world was not something which he felt he could share with more than a handful. Samuel Beckett's contributions to literature, being honored at the same time, seemed to Max somehow universally accessible to anyone. But not his. In his lecture here Max imagined his imprisonment in an ivory tower of science.
'The Polymerase Chain Reaction', Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1993). In Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1991-1995 (1997), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Award (13)  |  Samuel Beckett (3)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Credit (24)  |  Decade (66)  |  Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück (20)  |  First (1302)  |  Handful (14)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honor (57)  |  Honour (58)  |  Imprisonment (2)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Ivory Tower (5)  |  Lament (11)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literature (116)  |  Little (717)  |  Molecular Biologist (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Next (238)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  People (1031)  |  Publication (102)  |  Research (753)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Share (82)  |  Simulation (7)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tower (45)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

In a sense [for the Copenhagen Interpretation], the observer picks what happens. One of the unsolved questions is whether the observer’s mind or will somehow determines the choice, or whether it is simply a case of sticking in a thumb and pulling out a plum at random.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Case (102)  |  Choice (114)  |  Copenhagen (6)  |  Determine (152)  |  Happen (282)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observer (48)  |  Pick (16)  |  Plum (3)  |  Pull (43)  |  Question (649)  |  Random (42)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simply (53)  |  Stick (27)  |  Thumb (18)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Will (2350)

In attempting to discover how much blood passes from the veins into the arteries I made dissections of living animals, opened up arteries in them, and carried out various other investigations. I also considered the symmetry and size of the ventricles of the heart and of the vessels which enter and leave them (since Nature, who does nothing purposelessly, would not purposelessly have given these vessels such relatively large size). I also recalled the elegant and carefully contrived valves and fibres and other structural artistry of the heart; and many other points. I considered rather often and with care all this evidence, and took correspondingly long trying to assess how much blood was transmitted and in how short a time. I also noted that the juice of the ingested food could not supply this amount without our having the veins, on the one hand, completely emptied and the arteries, on the other hand, brought to bursting through excessive inthrust of blood, unless the blood somehow flowed back again from the arteries into the veins and returned to the right ventricle of the heart. In consequence, I began privately to consider that it had a movement, as it were, in a circle.
De Motu Cordis (1628), The Circulation of the Blood and Other Writings, trans. Kenneth j. Franklin (1957), Chapter 8, 57-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Back (395)  |  Blood (144)  |  Care (203)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Enter (145)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Flow (89)  |  Food (213)  |  Heart (243)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Large (398)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Return (133)  |  Right (473)  |  Short (200)  |  Structural (29)  |  Supply (100)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trying (144)  |  Various (205)  |  Vein (27)  |  Ventricle (7)  |  Vessel (63)

In the American colleges, anon and anon, there goes on a crusade against the gross over-accentuation of athletic sports and pastimes, but it is not likely that it will ever yield any substantial reform … against an enterprise that brings in such large sums of money. … The most one hears … is that it is somehow immoral for college stadiums to cost five times as much as college libraries; no one ever argues that the stadiums ought to be abolished altogether.
From American Mercury (Jun 1931). Collected in A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949, 1956), 370.
Science quotes on:  |  Abolish (13)  |  Against (332)  |  America (143)  |  Argue (25)  |  Athletic (5)  |  College (71)  |  Cost (94)  |  Crusade (6)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Football (11)  |  Hear (144)  |  Immoral (5)  |  Large (398)  |  Library (53)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pastime (6)  |  Reform (22)  |  Sport (23)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Sum (103)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yield (86)

In working out physical problems there should be, in the first place, no pretence of rigorous formalism. The physics will guide the physicist along somehow to useful and important results, by the constant union of physical and geometrical or analytical ideas. The practice of eliminating the physics by reducing a problem to a purely mathematical exercise should be avoided as much as possible. The physics should be carried on right through, to give life and reality to the problem, and to obtain the great assistance which the physics gives to the mathematics.
In Electromagnetic Theory (1892), Vol. 2, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Assistance (23)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Constant (148)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Exercise (113)  |  First (1302)  |  Formalism (7)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guide (107)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practice (212)  |  Pretence (7)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Through (846)  |  Union (52)  |  Useful (260)  |  Will (2350)

It hurts the spirit, somehow, to read the word environments, when the plural means that there are so many alternatives there to be sorted through, as in a market, and voted on.
In The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974, 1984), 121.
Science quotes on:  |  Environment (239)  |  Market (23)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Read (308)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Through (846)  |  Word (650)

It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning.
The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977), 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Back (395)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Chain (51)  |  Farce (5)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Life (1870)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Special (188)  |  Universe (900)

It is certainly true in the United States that there is an uneasiness about certain aspects of science, particularly evolution, because it conflicts, in some people’s minds, with their sense of how we all came to be. But you know, if you are a believer in God, it’s hard to imagine that God would somehow put this incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn't make sense at all.
From video of interview with Huffington post reporter at the 2014 Davos Annual Meeting, World Economic Forum (25 Jan 2014). On web page 'Dr. Francis Collins: “There Is An Uneasiness” About Evolution'
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Believer (26)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Disbelief (4)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  God (776)  |  Hard (246)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Incontrovertible (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  State (505)

It is obvious that man dwells in a splendid universe, a magnificent expanse of earth and sky and heaven, which manifestly is built on a majestic plan, maintains some mighty design, though man himself cannot grasp it. Yet for him it is not a pleasant or satisfying world. In his few moments of respite from labor or from his enemies, he dreams that this very universe might indeed be perfect, its laws operating just as now they seem to do, and yet he and it somehow be in full accord. The very ease with which he can frame this image to himself makes the reality all the more mocking. ... It is only too clear that man is not at home in this universe, and yet he is not good enough to deserve a better.
In The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1939, 1954), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  Better (493)  |  Clear (111)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Dwelling (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ease (40)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Enough (341)  |  Expanse (6)  |  Frame (26)  |  Good (906)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Himself (461)  |  Home (184)  |  Image (97)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Labor (200)  |  Law (913)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifestly (11)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mocking (4)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Operating (4)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Plan (122)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Reality (274)  |  Satisfying (5)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sky (174)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

It seems a miracle that young children easily learn the language of any environment into which they were born. The generative approach to grammar, pioneered by Chomsky, argues that this is only explicable if certain deep, universal features of this competence are innate characteristics of the human brain. Biologically speaking, this hypothesis of an inheritable capability to learn any language means that it must somehow be encoded in the DNA of our chromosomes. Should this hypothesis one day be verified, then lingusitics would become a branch of biology.
'The Generative Grammar of the Immune System', Nobel Lecture, 8 Dec 1984. In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1981-1990 (1993), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Become (821)  |  Biology (232)  |  Birth (154)  |  Brain (281)  |  Branch (155)  |  Capability (44)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Avram Noam Chomsky (7)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Competence (13)  |  Deep (241)  |  DNA (81)  |  Environment (239)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Innate (14)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Universal (198)  |  Young (253)

Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow or other it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance.
In 'Universities and Their Function', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Education (423)  |  Fish (130)  |  Freshness (8)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Importance (299)  |  Keeping (9)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Must (1525)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sea (326)  |  Species (435)  |  Student (317)  |  Truth (1109)

Most educated people are aware that we're the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun's demise, 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.
Lecture (2006), reprinted as 'Dark Materials'. As cited in J.G. Ballard, 'The Catastrophist', collected in Christopher Hitchens, Arguably: Selected Essays (2011), 353
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Aware (36)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Billion (104)  |  Creature (242)  |  Culmination (5)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Demise (2)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Education (423)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Human (1512)  |  Lifespan (9)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Outcome (15)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Selection (130)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tend (124)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Watch (118)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind. But actually it’s … about stepping back, seeing the thought clearly, witnessing it coming and going.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 184
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Assume (43)  |  Back (395)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Coming (114)  |  Control (182)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Rid (14)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Step (234)  |  Stop (89)  |  Thought (995)  |  Witness (57)

Now, all causes of natural effects must be expressed by means of lines, angles and figures, for otherwise it is impossible to grasp their explanation. This is evident as follows. A natural agent multiplies its power from itself to the recipient, whether it acts on sense or on matter. This power is sometimes called species, sometimes a likeness, and it is the same thing whatever it may be called; and the agent sends the same power into sense and into matter, or into its own contrary, as heat sends the same thing into the sense of touch and into a cold body. For it does not act, by deliberation and choice, and therefore it acts in a single manner whatever it encounters, whether sense or something insensitive, whether something animate or inanimate. But the effects are diversified by the diversity of the recipient, for when this power is received by the senses, it produces an effect that is somehow spiritual and noble; on the other hand, when it is received by matter, it produces a material effect. Thus the sun produces different effects in different recipients by the same power, for it cakes mud and melts ice.
De Uneis, Angulis et Figuris seu Fractionibus Reflexionibus Radiorum (On Lines, Angles and Figures or On the Refraction and Reflection of Rays) [1230/31], trans. D. C. Lindberg, quoted in E. Grant (ed.), A Source Book in Medieval Science (1974), 385-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Agent (73)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Choice (114)  |  Cold (115)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Deliberation (5)  |  Different (595)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evident (92)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Express (192)  |  Figure (162)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Ice (58)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Light (635)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Noble (93)  |  Optics (24)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Sense (785)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Whatever (234)

Physical science comes nearest to that complete system of exact knowledge which all sciences have before them as an ideal. Some fall far short of it. The physicist who inveighs against the lack of coherence and the indefiniteness of theological theories, will probably speak not much less harshly of the theories of biology and psychology. They also fail to come up to his standard of methodology. On the other side of him stands an even superior being—the pure mathematician—who has no high opinion of the methods of deduction used in physics, and does not hide his disapproval of the laxity of what is accepted as proof in physical science. And yet somehow knowledge grows in all these branches. Wherever a way opens we are impelled to seek by the only methods that can be devised for that particular opening, not over-rating the security of our finding, but conscious that in this activity of mind we are obeying the light that is in our nature.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 77-78.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Activity (218)  |  Against (332)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Coherence (13)  |  Complete (209)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fall (243)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hide (70)  |  High (370)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Light (635)  |  Method (531)  |  Methodology (14)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Open (277)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Proof (304)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Pure (299)  |  Security (51)  |  Seek (218)  |  Short (200)  |  Side (236)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stand (284)  |  Superior (88)  |  System (545)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Will (2350)

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual ... The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
In Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Both (496)  |  Compatible (4)  |  Disservice (4)  |  Elation (2)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Humility (31)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Intricacy (8)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Light-Years (2)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Notion (120)  |  Passage (52)  |  Place (192)  |  Profound (105)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Source (101)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Spirituality (8)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Surely (101)  |  Year (963)

Science is triumphant with far-ranging success, but its triumph is somehow clouded by growing difficulties in providing for the simple necessities of human life on earth.
In Science and Survival (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Cloud (111)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Growing (99)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Simple (426)  |  Success (327)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Triumphant (10)

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 (79)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Shout (25)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Today (321)  |  Tone (22)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Voice (54)

Scientific discovery, or the formulation of scientific theory, starts in with the unvarnished and unembroidered evidence of the senses. It starts with simple observation—simple, unbiased, unprejudiced, naive, or innocent observation—and out of this sensory evidence, embodied in the form of simple propositions or declarations of fact, generalizations will grow up and take shape, almost as if some process of crystallization or condensation were taking place. Out of a disorderly array of facts, an orderly theory, an orderly general statement, will somehow emerge.
In 'Is the Scientific Paper Fraudulent?', The Saturday Review (1 Aug 1964), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Array (5)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Crystallization (2)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Embody (18)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Formulation (37)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Grow (247)  |  Innocent (13)  |  Naive (13)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Process (439)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Shape (77)  |  Simple (426)  |  Start (237)  |  Statement (148)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unbiased (7)  |  Unprejudiced (3)  |  Unvarnished (2)  |  Will (2350)

Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution.
In Mankind Evolving: The Evolution of the Human Species, 128. As cited in Ted Woods & Alan Grant, Reason in Revolt - Dialectical Philosophy and Modern Science (2003), Vol. 2, 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Compelling (11)  |  Discover (571)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Naive (13)  |  Problem (731)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solution (282)  |  Themselves (433)  |  True (239)

Some see a clear line between genetic enhancement and other ways that people seek improvement in their children and themselves. Genetic manipulation seems somehow worse—more intrusive, more sinister—than other ways of enhancing performance and seeking success. But, morally speaking, the difference is less significant than it seems. Bioengineering gives us reason to question the low-tech, high-pressure child-rearing practices we commonly accept. The hyperparenting familiar in our time represents an anxious excess of mastery and dominion that misses the sense of life as a gift. This draws it disturbingly close to eugenics... Was the old eugenics objectionable only insofar as it was coercive? Or is there something inherently wrong with the resolve to deliberately design our progeny’s traits... But removing coercion does not vindicate eugenics. The problem with eugenics and genetic engineering is that they represent a one-sided triumph of willfulness over giftedness, of dominion over reverence, of molding over beholding.
Michael J. Sandel, 'The Case Against Perfection', The Atlantic Monthly (Apr 2004).
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Bioengineering (5)  |  Bioethics (12)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Design (203)  |  Difference (355)  |  Draw (140)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enhancement (5)  |  Eugenics (6)  |  Excess (23)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetic Engineering (16)  |  Gift (105)  |  High (370)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Low (86)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Mastery (36)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Performance (51)  |  Practice (212)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Represent (157)  |  Resolve (43)  |  See (1094)  |  Seek (218)  |  Sense (785)  |  Significant (78)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Sports (3)  |  Success (327)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wrong (246)

Somehow I am not distressed that the human order must veil all our interactions with the universe, for the veil is translucent, however strong its texture.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Distress (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Strong (182)  |  Texture (8)  |  Translucent (2)  |  Universe (900)  |  Veil (27)

Somehow we believe it is normal and natural for us to be alone in the world. Yet in fact, if you look at the fossil record, you find that this is totally unusual—this may be the first time that we have ever had just one species of humans in the world. We have a history of diversity and competition among human species which began some five million years ago and came to an end with the emergence of modern humans. Two million years ago, for example, there were at least four human species on the same landscape.
In interview with Amy Otchet, 'The Humans We Left Behind', UNESCO Courier (Dec 2000), 53, No. 12, 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Competition (45)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Emergence (35)  |  End (603)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fossil Record (12)  |  History (716)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Human (1512)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Look (584)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  Record (161)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unusual (37)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Somewhere in the arrangement of this world there seems to be a great concern about giving us delight, which shows that, in the universe, over and above the meaning of matter and forces, there is a message conveyed through the magic touch of personality. ...
Is it merely because the rose is round and pink that it gives me more satisfaction than the gold which could buy me the necessities of life, or any number of slaves. ... Somehow we feel that through a rose the language of love reached our hearts.
The Religion of Man (1931), 102. Quoted in H. E. Hunter, The Divine Proportion (1970), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Concern (239)  |  Delight (111)  |  Feel (371)  |  Force (497)  |  Gold (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Magic (92)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Merely (315)  |  Message (53)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Number (710)  |  Personality (66)  |  Pink (4)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rose (36)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Show (353)  |  Slave (40)  |  Through (846)  |  Touch (146)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

The aim of science is to apprehend this purely intelligible world as a thing in itself, an object which is what it is independently of all thinking, and thus antithetical to the sensible world.... The world of thought is the universal, the timeless and spaceless, the absolutely necessary, whereas the world of sense is the contingent, the changing and moving appearance which somehow indicates or symbolizes it.
'Outlines of a Philosophy of Art,' Essays in the Philosophy of Art, Indiana University Press (1964).
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Aim (175)  |  Antithetical (2)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Apprehend (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Contingent (12)  |  Independently (24)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Move (223)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Object (438)  |  Purely (111)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Spaceless (2)  |  Symbolize (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Timeless (8)  |  Universal (198)  |  World (1850)

The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or 'hypothesis-formulating' ability of unknown character and complexity.
A review of B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (1957). In Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, 1959, 35, 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Character (259)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Data (162)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Language (308)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Unknown (195)

The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.
Translation of Novum Organum, XLVII. In Francis Bacon, James Spedding, The Works of Francis Bacon (1864), Vol. 8, 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Enter (145)  |  Fill (67)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  See (1094)  |  Similar (36)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Strike (72)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Surround (33)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understanding (527)

The lives of scientists, considered as Lives, almost always make dull reading. For one thing, the careers of the famous and the merely ordinary fall into much the same pattern, give or take an honorary degree or two, or (in European countries) an honorific order. It could be hardly otherwise. Academics can only seldom lead lives that are spacious or exciting in a worldly sense. They need laboratories or libraries and the company of other academics. Their work is in no way made deeper or more cogent by privation, distress or worldly buffetings. Their private lives may be unhappy, strangely mixed up or comic, but not in ways that tell us anything special about the nature or direction of their work. Academics lie outside the devastation area of the literary convention according to which the lives of artists and men of letters are intrinsically interesting, a source of cultural insight in themselves. If a scientist were to cut his ear off, no one would take it as evidence of a heightened sensibility; if a historian were to fail (as Ruskin did) to consummate his marriage, we should not suppose that our understanding of historical scholarship had somehow been enriched.
'J.B.S: A Johnsonian Scientist', New York Review of Books (10 Oct 1968), reprinted in Pluto's Republic (1982), and inThe Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science (1996), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  According (236)  |  Artist (97)  |  Career (86)  |  Cogent (6)  |  Comic (5)  |  Company (63)  |  Consider (428)  |  Convention (16)  |  Culture (157)  |  Cut (116)  |  Degree (277)  |  Devastation (6)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distress (9)  |  Dull (58)  |  Ear (69)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Enrichment (7)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fame (51)  |  Historian (59)  |  Historical (70)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lead (391)  |  Letter (117)  |  Library (53)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literary (15)  |  Live (650)  |  Man Of Letters (6)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Privacy (7)  |  Privation (5)  |  Reading (136)  |  John Ruskin (25)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensibility (5)  |  Special (188)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unhappiness (9)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

There are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before. … we can't allow our nation to fall behind. Unfortunately, that's exactly what's happened. Federal funding in the physical sciences as a portion of our gross domestic product has fallen by nearly half over the past quarter century. Time and again we've allowed the research and experimentation tax credit, which helps businesses grow and innovate, to lapse.
Speech to the National Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting (27 Apr 2009).
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Business (156)  |  Century (319)  |  Credit (24)  |  Disagreement (14)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Environment (239)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fall (243)  |  Federal (6)  |  Fund (19)  |  Funding (20)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Health (210)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Invest (20)  |  Life (1870)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Past (355)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Portion (86)  |  Product (166)  |  Prosperity (31)  |  Quality (139)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Security (51)  |  Support (151)  |  Tax (27)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfortunately (40)

There isn’t one, not one, instance where it’s known what pattern of neural connectivity realizes a certain cognitive content, inate or learned, in either the infant’s nervous system or the adult’s. To be sure, our brains must somehow register the contents of our mental states. The trouble is: Nobody knows how—by what neurological means—they do so. Nobody can look at the patterns of connectivity (or of anything else) in a brain and figure out whether it belongs to somebody who knows algebra, or who speaks English, or who believes that Washington was the Father of his country.
In Critical Condition: Polemic Essays on Cognitive science and the Philosophy of the Mind (1988), 269-71. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Belief (615)  |  Belong (168)  |  Brain (281)  |  Certain (557)  |  Cognitive (7)  |  Connectivity (2)  |  Content (75)  |  Country (269)  |  Do (1905)  |  English (35)  |  Father (113)  |  Figure (162)  |  Figure Out (7)  |  Infant (26)  |  Instance (33)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mental (179)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Realize (157)  |  Register (22)  |  Somebody (8)  |  Speak (240)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Washington (7)

This property of human languages—their resistance to algorithmic processing— is perhaps the ultimate reason why only mathematics can furnish an adequate language for physics. It is not that we lack words for expressing all this E = mc² and ∫eiS(Φ)DΦ … stuff … , the point is that we still would not be able to do anything with these great discoveries if we had only words for them. … Miraculously, it turns out that even very high level abstractions can somehow reflect reality: knowledge of the world discovered by physicists can be expressed only in the language of mathematics.
In 'Mathematical Knowledge: Internal, Social, And Cultural Aspects', Mathematics As Metaphor: Selected Essays (2007), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Express (192)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Miraculous (11)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Processing (2)  |  Property (177)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Still (614)  |  Turn (454)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Why (491)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Walking the streets of Tokyo with Hawking in his wheelchair ... I felt as if I were taking a walk through Galilee with Jesus Christ [as] crowds of Japanese silently streamed after us, stretching out their hands to touch Hawking's wheelchair. ... The crowds had streamed after Einstein [on Einstein's visit to Japan in 1922] as they streamed after Hawking seventy years later. ... They showed exquisite choice in their heroes. ... Somehow they understood that Einstein and Hawking were not just great scientists, but great human beings.
Foreward to Alice Calaprice, The Quotable Einstein (1996), xiii-xiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Choice (114)  |  Christ (17)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Great (1610)  |  Stephen W. Hawking (62)  |  Hero (45)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Japan (9)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Show (353)  |  Stream (83)  |  Through (846)  |  Tokyo (3)  |  Touch (146)  |  Understood (155)  |  Walk (138)  |  Year (963)

We have been forced to admit for the first time in history not only the possibility of the fact of the growth and decay of the elements of matter. With radium and with uranium we do not see anything but the decay. And yet, somewhere, somehow, it is almost certain that these elements must be continuously forming. They are probably being put together now in the laboratory of the stars. ... Can we ever learn to control the process. Why not? Only research can tell.
'The Significance of Radium,' an address delivered (in connection with the presentation of a gram of radium to Madame Curie) at the National Museum, Washington, D.C. (25 May 1921). In Science (1921), 54, No. 1383, 1921. In Rodney P. Carlisle, Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries (2004), 375.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Certain (557)  |  Control (182)  |  Decay (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Forming (42)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Learn (672)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Process (439)  |  Radium (29)  |  Research (753)  |  See (1094)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Why (491)

We must somehow keep the dreams of space exploration alive, for in the long run they will prove to be of far more importance to the human race than the attainment of material benefits. Like Darwin, we have set sail upon an ocean: the cosmic sea of the Universe. There can be no turning back. To do so could well prove to be a guarantee of extinction. When a nation, or a race or a planet turns its back on the future, to concentrate on the present, it cannot see what lies ahead. It can neither plan nor prepare for the future, and thus discards the vital opportunity for determining its evolutionary heritage and perhaps its survival.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ahead (21)  |  Alive (97)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Back (395)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Darwin (14)  |  Determine (152)  |  Discard (32)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Far (158)  |  Future (467)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Importance (299)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Keep (104)  |  Lie (370)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Plan (122)  |  Planet (402)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Present (630)  |  Prove (261)  |  Race (278)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Exploration (15)  |  Survival (105)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vital (89)  |  Will (2350)

When Bohr is about everything is somehow different. Even the dullest gets a fit of brilliancy.
Isidor I. Rabi in Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists (1978), 201.
Science quotes on:  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Different (595)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fit (139)

Why then does science work? The answer is that nobody knows. It is a complete mystery—perhaps the complete mystery&mdashwhy the human mind should be able to understand anything at all about the wider universe. ... Perhaps it is because our brains evolved through the working of natural law that they somehow resonate with natural law. ... But the mystery, really, is not that we are at one with the universe, but that we are so to some degree at odds with it, different from it, and yet can understand something about it. Why is this so?
Coming of Age in the Milky Way (1988), 385. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 185.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Brain (281)  |  Complete (209)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Odds (6)  |  Really (77)  |  Resonate (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Wide (97)  |  Work (1402)

Without the slightest doubt there is something through which material and spiritual energy hold togehter and are complementary. In the last analysis, somehow or other, there must be a single energy operating in the world. And the first idea that occurs to us is that the 'soul' must be as it were the focal point of transformation at which, from all the points of nature, the forces of bodies converge, to become interiorised and sublimated in beauty and truth.
In Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Wall (trans.), The Phenomenon of Man (1959, 2008), 63. Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955).
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Body (557)  |  Complementary (15)  |  Converge (10)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Energy (373)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Hold (96)  |  Idea (881)  |  Last (425)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occur (151)  |  Operating (4)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Single (365)  |  Slightest (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)


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.