TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index S > Category: Sound

Sound Quotes (187 quotes)

… (T)he same cause, such as electricity, can simultaneously affect all sensory organs, since they are all sensitive to it; and yet, every sensory nerve reacts to it differently; one nerve perceives it as light, another hears its sound, another one smells it; another tastes the electricity, and another one feels it as pain and shock. One nerve perceives a luminous picture through mechanical irritation, another one hears it as buzzing, another one senses it as pain… He who feels compelled to consider the consequences of these facts cannot but realize that the specific sensibility of nerves for certain impressions is not enough, since all nerves are sensitive to the same cause but react to the same cause in different ways… (S)ensation is not the conduction of a quality or state of external bodies to consciousness, but the conduction of a quality or state of our nerves to consciousness, excited by an external cause.
Law of Specific Nerve Energies.
Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen für Vorlesungen, 2nd Ed. translation by Edwin Clarke and Charles Donald O'Malley
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conduction (8)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feel (371)  |  Hear (144)  |  Impression (118)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pain (144)  |  Picture (148)  |  Quality (139)  |  Realize (157)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Shock (38)  |  Smell (29)  |  Specific (98)  |  State (505)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)

...for the animals, which we resemble and which would be our equals if we did not have reason, do not reflect upon the actions or the passions of their external or internal senses, and do not know what is color, odor or sound, or if there is any differences between these objects, to which they are moved rather than moving themselves there. This comes about by the force of the impression that the different objects make on their organs and on their senses, for they cannot discern if it is more appropriate to go and drink or eat or do something else, and they do not eat or drink or do anything else except when the presence of objects or the animal imagination [l'imagination brutalle], necessitates them and transports them to their objects, without their knowing what they do, whether good or bad; which would happen to us just as to them if we were destitute of reason, for they have no enlightenment except what they must have to take their nourishment and to serve us for the uses to which God has destined them.
[Arguing the uniqueness of man by regarding animals to be merely automatons.].
Les Préludes de l'Harmonie Universelle (1634), 135-139. In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974), Vol. 9, 318.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Bad (185)  |  Color (155)  |  Destined (42)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Destitution (2)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  Equal (88)  |  Force (497)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impression (118)  |  Internal (69)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Object (438)  |  Odor (11)  |  Organ (118)  |  Passion (121)  |  Presence (63)  |  Reason (766)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serve (64)  |  Something (718)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Transport (31)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Use (771)

[Creationists] make it sound as though a “theory” is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
Remark to the National Center Against Censorship (NCAC)(1980). In Norman A. Johnson, Darwinian Detectives (2007), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Creationist (16)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drunk (10)  |  Something (718)  |  Theory (1015)

[Having already asserted his opposition to communism in every respect by signing the regents' oath, his answer to a question why a non-Communist professor should refuse to take a non-Communist oath as a condition of University employment was that to do so would imply it was] up to an accused person to clear himself. ... That sort of thing is going on in Washington today and is a cause of alarm to thoughtful citizens. It is the method used in totalitarian countries. It sounds un-American to people who don’t like to be pushed around. If someone says I ought to do a certain thing the burden should be on him to show I why I should, not on me to show why I should not.
As quoted in 'Educator Scores Oath For Faculty', New York Times (16 Apr 1950), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Accusation (6)  |  Alarm (19)  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Assert (69)  |  Burden (30)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Communism (11)  |  Communist (9)  |  Condition (362)  |  Country (269)  |  Do (1905)  |  Employment (34)  |  Himself (461)  |  Method (531)  |  Oath (10)  |  Opposition (49)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Professor (133)  |  Push (66)  |  Question (649)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Respect (212)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Today (321)  |  Totalitarian (6)  |  Un-American (3)  |  Unamerican (2)  |  University (130)  |  Washington (7)  |  Why (491)

[If I were to be reincarnated] I would come back as a sloth. Hanging from a tree, chewing leaves sounds great.
From interview with Belinda Luscombe, '10 Questions', Time (12 Dec 2011), 178, No. 23, 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Chew (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hang (46)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Reincarnation (3)  |  Sloth (7)  |  Tree (269)

[The new term] Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward that I think I shall never use it. The equivalent of three separate sounds of i in one word is too much.
Quoted in Sydney Ross, Nineteenth-Century Attitudes: Men of Science (1991), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Awkward (11)  |  Biography (254)  |  Both (496)  |  Ear (69)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Separate (151)  |  Term (357)  |  Think (1122)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

[We] can easily distinguish what relates to Mathematics in any question from that which belongs to the other sciences. But as I considered the matter carefully it gradually came to light that all those matters only were referred to Mathematics in which order and measurements are investigated, and that it makes no difference whether it be in numbers, figures, stars, sounds or any other object that the question of measurement arises. I saw consequently that there must be some general science to explain that element as a whole which gives rise to problems about order and measurement, restricted as these are to no special subject matter. This, I perceived was called “Universal Mathematics,” not a far-fetched asignation, but one of long standing which has passed into current use, because in this science is contained everything on account of which the others are called parts of Mathematics.
Rules for the Direction of the Mind (written 1628). As translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross in The Philosophical Works of Descartes (1911, 1931), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Arise (162)  |  Belong (168)  |  Call (781)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Consider (428)  |  Current (122)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explain (334)  |  Figure (162)  |  General (521)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Rise (169)  |  Saw (160)  |  Special (188)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Subject (543)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)

'[R]eductionism' is one of those things, like sin, that is only mentioned by people who are against it. To call oneself a reductionist will sound, in some circles, a bit like admitting to eating babies. But, just as nobody actually eats babies, so nobody is really a reductionist in any sense worth being against.
The Blind Watchmaker (1996), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Circle (117)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  Mention (84)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Oneself (33)  |  People (1031)  |  Reductionism (8)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sin (45)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)

Boss: I just heard that light travels faster than sound. I'm wondering if I should shout when I speak, just so my lips appear to sync-up with my words.
Dilbert (thought): A little knowledge can be a ridiculous thing.
Dilbert comic strip (10 Sep 1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Faster (50)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Lip (4)  |  Little (717)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Shout (25)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Travel (125)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Word (650)

Dilbert: Evolution must be true because it is a logical conclusion of the scientific method.
Dogbert: But science is based on the irrational belief that because we cannot perceive reality all at once, things called “time” and “cause and effect” exist.
Dilbert: That’s what I was taught and that’s what I believe.
Dogbert: Sounds cultish.
Dilbert comic strip (8 Feb 1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Cult (5)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Irrational (16)  |  Logic (311)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Perception (97)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

Dilbert: It took weeks but I’ve calculated a new theory about the origin of the universe. According to my calculations it didn’t start with a “Big Bang” at all—it was more of “Phhbwt” sound. You may be wondering about the practical applications of the “Little Phhbwt” theory.
Dogbert: I was wondering when you’ll go away.
Dilbert comic strip (1 Jan 1993)
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Application (257)  |  Bang (29)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practicality (7)  |  Start (237)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Universe (900)  |  Week (73)  |  Wonder (251)

Question: A hollow indiarubber ball full of air is suspended on one arm of a balance and weighed in air. The whole is then covered by the receiver of an air pump. Explain what will happen as the air in the receiver is exhausted.
Answer: The ball would expand and entirely fill the vessell, driving out all before it. The balance being of greater density than the rest would be the last to go, but in the end its inertia would be overcome and all would be expelled, and there would be a perfect vacuum. The ball would then burst, but you would not be aware of the fact on account of the loudness of a sound varying with the density of the place in which it is generated, and not on that in which it is heard.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 181, Question 21. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Air (366)  |  Air Pump (2)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Balance (82)  |  Ball (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burst (41)  |  Cover (40)  |  Density (25)  |  Drive (61)  |  Driving (28)  |  End (603)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Expulsion (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Generation (256)  |  Greater (288)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Hollow (6)  |  Howler (15)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Loudness (3)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Overcoming (3)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Place (192)  |  Question (649)  |  Receiver (5)  |  Rest (287)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Varying (2)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Weighing (2)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Question: Explain how to determine the time of vibration of a given tuning-fork, and state what apparatus you would require for the purpose.
Answer: For this determination I should require an accurate watch beating seconds, and a sensitive ear. I mount the fork on a suitable stand, and then, as the second hand of my watch passes the figure 60 on the dial, I draw the bow neatly across one of its prongs. I wait. I listen intently. The throbbing air particles are receiving the pulsations; the beating prongs are giving up their original force; and slowly yet surely the sound dies away. Still I can hear it, but faintly and with close attention; and now only by pressing the bones of my head against its prongs. Finally the last trace disappears. I look at the time and leave the room, having determined the time of vibration of the common “pitch” fork. This process deteriorates the fork considerably, hence a different operation must be performed on a fork which is only lent.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 176-7, Question 4. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Against (332)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beat (42)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bow (15)  |  Close (77)  |  Common (447)  |  Deterioration (10)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dial (9)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Ear (69)  |  Examination (102)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Faint (10)  |  Figure (162)  |  Force (497)  |  Head (87)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Howler (15)  |  Last (425)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Listen (81)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mount (43)  |  Mounting (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Operation (221)  |  Original (61)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Pressing (2)  |  Process (439)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Require (229)  |  Room (42)  |  Second (66)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Slow (108)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Sure (15)  |  Surely (101)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Tuning Fork (2)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Watch (118)

Question: If you walk on a dry path between two walls a few feet apart, you hear a musical note or “ring” at each footstep. Whence comes this?
Answer: This is similar to phosphorescent paint. Once any sound gets between two parallel reflectors or walls, it bounds from one to the other and never stops for a long time. Hence it is persistent, and when you walk between the walls you hear the sounds made by those who walked there before you. By following a muffin man down the passage within a short time you can hear most distinctly a musical note, or, as it is more properly termed in the question, a “ring” at every (other) step.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 175-6, Question 2. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Before (8)  |  Bound (120)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Examination (102)  |  Following (16)  |  Footstep (5)  |  Hear (144)  |  Howler (15)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Never (1089)  |  Note (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paint (22)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Passage (52)  |  Path (159)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Phosphorescent (3)  |  Question (649)  |  Reflector (4)  |  Short (200)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Step (234)  |  Stop (89)  |  Term (357)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wall (71)

A fossil hunter needs sharp eyes and a keen search image, a mental template that subconsciously evaluates everything he sees in his search for telltale clues. A kind of mental radar works even if he isn’t concentrating hard. A fossil mollusk expert has a mollusk search image. A fossil antelope expert has an antelope search image. … Yet even when one has a good internal radar, the search is incredibly more difficult than it sounds. Not only are fossils often the same color as the rocks among which they are found, so they blend in with the background; they are also usually broken into odd-shaped fragments. … In our business, we don’t expect to find a whole skull lying on the surface staring up at us. The typical find is a small piece of petrified bone. The fossil hunter’s search therefore has to have an infinite number of dimensions, matching every conceivable angle of every shape of fragment of every bone on the human body.
Describing the skill of his co-worker, Kamoya Kimeu, who discovered the Turkana Boy, the most complete specimen of Homo erectus, on a slope covered with black lava pebbles.
Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human (1992), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Boy (100)  |  Broken (56)  |  Business (156)  |  Color (155)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Discover (571)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expert (67)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Good (906)  |  Hard (246)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Image (97)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Internal (69)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lava (12)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mollusk (6)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Radar (9)  |  Rock (176)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Skill (116)  |  Slope (10)  |  Small (489)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Surface (223)  |  Usually (176)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

A man who is ‘of sound mind’ is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Inner (72)  |  Keep (104)  |  Key (56)  |  Lock (14)  |  Madman (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)

A plain, reasonable working man supposes, in the old way which is also the common-sense way, that if there are people who spend their lives in study, whom he feeds and keeps while they think for him—then no doubt these men are engaged in studying things men need to know; and he expects of science that it will solve for him the questions on which his welfare, and that of all men, depends. He expects science to tell him how he ought to live: how to treat his family, his neighbours and the men of other tribes, how to restrain his passions, what to believe in and what not to believe in, and much else. And what does our science say to him on these matters?
It triumphantly tells him: how many million miles it is from the earth to the sun; at what rate light travels through space; how many million vibrations of ether per second are caused by light, and how many vibrations of air by sound; it tells of the chemical components of the Milky Way, of a new element—helium—of micro-organisms and their excrements, of the points on the hand at which electricity collects, of X rays, and similar things.
“But I don't want any of those things,” says a plain and reasonable man—“I want to know how to live.”
In 'Modern Science', Essays and Letters (1903), 221-222.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Component (51)  |  Depend (238)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Ether (37)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Family (101)  |  Helium (11)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Micro-Organism (3)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Ray (115)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solve (145)  |  Space (523)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Spend (97)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Travel (125)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  X-ray (43)

A professor … may be to produce a perfect mathematical work of art, having every axiom stated, every conclusion drawn with flawless logic, the whole syllabus covered. This sounds excellent, but in practice the result is often that the class does not have the faintest idea of what is going on. … The framework is lacking; students do not know where the subject fits in, and this has a paralyzing effect on the mind.
In A Concrete Approach to Abstract Algebra (1959), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Class (168)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Faint (10)  |  Fit (139)  |  Framework (33)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lack (127)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Paralyze (3)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Practice (212)  |  Professor (133)  |  Result (700)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Work Of Art (3)

A sound Physics of the Earth should include all the primary considerations of the earth's atmosphere, of the characteristics and continual changes of the earth's external crust, and finally of the origin and development of living organisms. These considerations naturally divide the physics of the earth into three essential parts, the first being a theory of the atmosphere, or Meteorology, the second, a theory of the earth's external crust, or Hydrogeology, and the third, a theory of living organisms, or Biology.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Change (639)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Continual (44)  |  Crust (43)  |  Development (441)  |  Divide (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Essential (210)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Include (93)  |  Living (492)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Primary (82)  |  Theory (1015)

Academies have been instituted to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength.
From Dictionary of the English Language (1818), Vol. 1, Preface, xxiii. Note: Subtile means subtle.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Activity (218)  |  Avenue (14)  |  Desire (212)  |  Equally (129)  |  Fugitive (4)  |  Guard (19)  |  Intruder (5)  |  Language (308)  |  Lash (3)  |  Legal (9)  |  Measure (241)  |  Pride (84)  |  Repulse (2)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Retain (57)  |  Strength (139)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Syllable (3)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Unwilling (9)  |  Vain (86)  |  Vigilance (5)  |  Wind (141)

Accountants and second-rate business school jargon are in the ascendant. Costs, which rise rapidly, and are easily ascertained and comprehensible, now weigh more heavily in the scales than the unquantifiable and unpredictable values and future material progress. Perhaps science will only regain its lost primacy as peoples and government begin to recognize that sound scientific work is the only secure basis for the construction of policies to ensure the survival of Mankind without irreversible damage to Planet Earth.
In New Scientist, March 3, 1990.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Basis (180)  |  Begin (275)  |  Business (156)  |  Construction (114)  |  Cost (94)  |  Damage (38)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Future (467)  |  Government (116)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Jargon (13)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scale (122)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Survival (105)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Value (393)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Again, it [the Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine. Supposing for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.
In Richard Taylor (ed.), 'Translator’s Notes to M. Menabrea’s Memoir', Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies and Learned Societies and from Foreign Journals (1843), 3, Note A, 694. Her notes were appended to L.F. Menabrea, of Turin, Officer of the Military Engineers, 'Article XXIX: Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage Esq.', Bibliothèque Universelle de Gnve (Oct 1842), No. 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Analytical Engine (5)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Composition (86)  |  Degree (277)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Engine (99)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Music (133)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Notation (28)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Relation (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Supposing (3)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  Thing (1914)

All your names I and my friend approve of or nearly all as to sense & expression, but I am frightened by their length & sound when compounded. As you will see I have taken deoxide and skaiode because they agree best with my natural standard East and West. I like Anode & Cathode better as to sound, but all to whom I have shewn them have supposed at first that by Anode I meant No way.
Letter (3 May 1834) to William Whewell, who coined the terms. In Frank A. J. L. James (ed.), The Correspondence of Michael Faraday (1993), Vol. 2, 181. Note: Here “No way” is presumably not an idiomatic exclamation, but a misinterpretation from the Greek prefix, -a “not”or “away from,” and hodos meaning “way.” The Greek ἄνοδος anodos means “way up” or “ascent.”
Science quotes on:  |  Anode (4)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Compound (117)  |  Electrolysis (8)  |  Expression (181)  |  First (1302)  |  Friend (180)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Way (1214)  |  William Whewell (70)  |  Will (2350)

And men ought to know that from nothing else but thence [from the brain] come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear, and know what are foul and hat are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what unsavory... And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us... All these things we endure from the brain, when it is not healthy... In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which emanate from the air, when it [the brain] happens to be in a sound state.
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bad (185)  |  Become (821)  |  Brain (281)  |  Delight (111)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Foul (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Grief (20)  |  Happen (282)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Hear (144)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Neuroscience (3)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organ (118)  |  Power (771)  |  See (1094)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Sport (23)  |  State (505)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

And somewhere there are engineers
Helping others fly faster than sound.
But, where are the engineers
Helping those who must live on the ground?
Anonymous
Oxfam poster, as quoted on various websites.
Science quotes on:  |  Engineer (136)  |  Faster (50)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Ground (222)  |  Help (116)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Supersonic (4)

Art and science work in quite different ways: agreed. But, bad as it may sound, I have to admit that I cannot get along as an artist without the use of one or two sciences. ... In my view, the great and complicated things that go on in the world cannot be adequately recognized by people who do not use every possible aid to understanding.
Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (trans.), Brecht on Theatre (1964), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Bad (185)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Great (1610)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith’s door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
From poem 'To A Child' (1847), as collected in The Poetical Works of H.W. Longfellow (1855), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Anvil (3)  |  Blacksmith (5)  |  Chord (4)  |  Different (595)  |  Door (94)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Iron (99)  |  Note (39)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Secret (216)  |  Standing (11)  |  Tone (22)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Vibrant (2)  |  Wire (36)

At last such field studies have been put on a sound basis which should result in the hunting of information rather than specimens.
Concluding line of Allee’s Review (of Hiram Bingham’s 1932 book, Gorillas in a Native Habitat), in journal, Ecology (1933), 14, No. 3, 320. Note that the quote is authored by the reviewer, W.C. Allee, and any source attributing it directly to Bingham himself is incorrect.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Field (378)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Information (173)  |  Last (425)  |  Result (700)  |  Specimen (32)

Be not afeard.
The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
The Tempest (1611), III, ii.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Delight (111)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drop (77)  |  Ear (69)  |  Humming (5)  |  Hurt (14)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Isle (6)  |  Long (778)  |  Mine (78)  |  Noise (40)  |  Open (277)  |  Riches (14)  |  Show (353)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Voice (54)  |  Waking (17)  |  Will (2350)

Because words pass away as soon as they strike upon the air, and last no longer than their sound, men have by means of letters formed signs of words. Thus the sounds of the voice are made visible to the eye, not of course as sounds, but by means of certain signs.
In 'Origin of Writing', Christian Doctrine, Book 2, as translated by J.F. Shaw, collected in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church: Volume II: St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (1907), 536.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Certain (557)  |  Course (413)  |  Eye (440)  |  Form (976)  |  Last (425)  |  Letter (117)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Pass (241)  |  Sign (63)  |  Soon (187)  |  Strike (72)  |  Visible (87)  |  Voice (54)  |  Word (650)

Bismarck, enraged at Virchow’s constant criticisms, has his seconds call upon the scientist to challenge him to a duel. “As the challenged party, I have the choice of weapons,” said Virchow, “and I chose these.” He held aloft two sausages. “One of these,” he went on, “is infected with deadly germs; the other is perfectly sound. Let his Excellency decide which one he wishes to eat, and I will eat the other.” Almost immediately the message came back that the chancellor had decided to laugh off the duel.
As quoted in Clifton Fadiman (ed.), André Bernard (ed.), Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes (2000), 556, citing E. Fuller, 2500 Anecdotes.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Otto von Bismarck (3)  |  Call (781)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chancellor (8)  |  Choice (114)  |  Constant (148)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Duel (4)  |  Eat (108)  |  Germ (54)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Message (53)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sausage (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Two (936)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Will (2350)

By no process of sound reasoning can a conclusion drawn from limited data have more than a limited application.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Data (162)  |  Draw (140)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Process (439)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)

Chemistry without catalysis, would be a sword without a handle, a light without brilliance, a bell without sound.
R. B. Desper, 'Alwin Mittasch', Journal of Chemlca1 Education (1948), 25, 531-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Bell (35)  |  Brilliance (14)  |  Catalysis (7)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Handle (29)  |  Light (635)  |  Sword (16)

Common sense is science exactly in so far as it fulfills the ideal of common sense; that is, sees facts as they are, or at any rate, without the distortion of prejudice, and reasons from them in accordance with the dictates of sound judgment. And science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
The Crayfish: an Introduction to the Study of Zoölogy (1880), 2. Excerpted in Popular Science (Apr 1880), 16, 789.
Science quotes on:  |  Accordance (10)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Best (467)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Dictate (11)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Fulfillment (20)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Logic (311)  |  Observation (593)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)

Confined to its true domain, mathematical reasoning is admirably adapted to perform the universal office of sound logic: to induce in order to deduce, in order to construct. … It contents itself to furnish, in the most favorable domain, a model of clearness, of precision, and consistency, the close contemplation of which is alone able to prepare the mind to render other conceptions also as perfect as their nature permits. Its general reaction, more negative than positive, must consist, above all, in inspiring us everywhere with an invincible aversion for vagueness, inconsistency, and obscurity, which may always be really avoided in any reasoning whatsoever, if we make sufficient effort.
In Synthèse Subjective (1856), 98. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 202-203. From the original French, “Bornée à son vrai domaine, la raison mathématique y peut admirablement remplir l’office universel de la saine logique: induire pour déduire, afin de construire. … Elle se contente de former, dans le domaine le plus favorable, un type de clarté, de précision, et de consistance, dont la contemplation familière peut seule disposer l’esprit à rendre les autres conceptions aussi parfaites que le comporte leur nature. Sa réaction générale, plus négative que positive, doit surtout consister à nous inspirer partout une invincible répugnance pour le vague, l’incohérence, et l’obscurité, que nous pouvons réellement éviter envers des pensées quelconques, si nous y faisons assez d’efforts.”
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Alone (324)  |  Aversion (9)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Close (77)  |  Conception (160)  |  Confine (26)  |  Consist (223)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Content (75)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Domain (72)  |  Effort (243)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Furnish (97)  |  General (521)  |  Inconsistent (9)  |  Induce (24)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Invincible (6)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Logic (27)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Negative (66)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Office (71)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perform (123)  |  Permit (61)  |  Positive (98)  |  Precision (72)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Render (96)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  True (239)  |  Universal (198)  |  Vagueness (15)  |  Whatsoever (41)

Conformity-enforcing packs of vicious children and adults gradually shape the social complexes we know as religion, science, corporations, ethnic groups, and even nations. The tools of our cohesion include ridicule, rejection, snobbery, self-righteousness, assault, torture, and death by stoning, lethal injection, or the noose. A collective brain may sound warm and fuzzily New Age, but one force lashing it together is abuse.
In 'The Conformity Police', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Abuse (25)  |  Adult (24)  |  Age (509)  |  Assault (12)  |  Brain (281)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Cohesion (7)  |  Collective (24)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conform (15)  |  Corporation (6)  |  Death (406)  |  Enforce (11)  |  Ethnic (2)  |  Force (497)  |  Fuzzy (5)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Group (83)  |  Include (93)  |  Injection (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lash (3)  |  Lethal (4)  |  Nation (208)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Noose (2)  |  Pack (6)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Religion (369)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Righteousness (6)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Righteous (2)  |  Shape (77)  |  Social (261)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Stone (168)  |  Together (392)  |  Tool (129)  |  Torture (30)  |  Vicious (5)  |  Warm (74)

Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
From poem 'Courage' (1927), opening lines, included in magazine article by Marion Perkins, 'Who Is Amelia Earhart?', Survey (1 Jul 1928), 60. Quoted as epigraph, and cited in Mary S. Lovell, The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart (1989), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Bitter (30)  |  Courage (82)  |  Fear (212)  |  Hear (144)  |  Height (33)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Peace (116)  |  Price (57)  |  Release (31)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wing (79)

Describing laughter: The sound is produced by a deep inspiration followed by short, interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially the diaphragm... the mouth is open more or less widely, with the corners drawn much backwards, as well as a little upwards; and the upper lip is somewhat raised.
The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals
Science quotes on:  |  Backwards (18)  |  Contraction (18)  |  Corner (59)  |  Deep (241)  |  Follow (389)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Open (277)  |  Produced (187)  |  Short (200)  |  Upward (44)

Examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized?
Science quotes on:  |  Element (322)  |  Examine (84)  |  Language (308)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Natural (810)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Recognize (136)

Exercise in the most rigorous thinking that is possible will of its own accord strengthen the sense of truth and right, for each advance in the ability to distinguish between correct and false thoughts, each habit making for rigour in thought development will increase in the sound pupil the ability and the wish to ascertain what is right in life and to defend it.
In Anleitung zum mathematischen Unterricht in den höheren Schulen (1906), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Advance (298)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Correct (95)  |  Defend (32)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Exercise (113)  |  False (105)  |  Habit (174)  |  Increase (225)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Most (1728)  |  Possible (560)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Sense (785)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

Exits sun; enters moon.
This moon is never alone.
Stars are seen all around.
These twinklers do not make a sound.
The tiny ones shine from their place.
Mother moon watches with a smiling face.
Its light is soothing to the eyes.
Night’s darkness hides its face.
Cool and calm is its light.
Heat and sweat are never felt.
Some days, moon is not seen.
Makes kids wonder, where had it been?
Partial eclipse shades the moon.
In summers it does not arrive soon.
Beautiful is this milky ball.
It is the love of one and all.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Calm (32)  |  Cool (15)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exit (4)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Feel (371)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hide (70)  |  Kid (18)  |  Light (635)  |  Love (328)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mother (116)  |  Never (1089)  |  Night (133)  |  Partial (10)  |  Place (192)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shine (49)  |  Smile (34)  |  Soon (187)  |  Soothing (3)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wonder (251)

Finally one should add that in spite of the great complexity of protein synthesis and in spite of the considerable technical difficulties in synthesizing polynucleotides with defined sequences it is not unreasonable to hope that all these points will be clarified in the near future, and that the genetic code will be completely established on a sound experimental basis within a few years.
From Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1962), 'On the Genetic Code'. Collected in Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962 (1964), 808.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Code (31)  |  Completely (137)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Considerable (75)  |  DNA (81)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Future (467)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Point (584)  |  Protein (56)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Spite (55)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Finally, in regard to those who possess the largest shares in the stock of worldly goods, could there, in your opinion, be any police so vigilant and effetive, for the protections of all the rights of person, property and character, as such a sound and comprehensive education and training, as our system of Common Schools could be made to impart; and would not the payment of a sufficient tax to make such education and training universal, be the cheapest means of self-protection and insurance?
Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts for the years 1839-1844, Life and Works of Horace Mann (1891), Vol. 3, 100.
Science quotes on:  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Education (423)  |  Good (906)  |  Impart (24)  |  Insurance (12)  |  Largest (39)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Person (366)  |  Police (5)  |  Possess (157)  |  Property (177)  |  Protection (41)  |  Regard (312)  |  Right (473)  |  School (227)  |  Self (268)  |  Share (82)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  System (545)  |  Tax (27)  |  Training (92)  |  Universal (198)

For just as musical instruments are brought to perfection of clearness in the sound of their strings by means of bronze plates or horn sounding boards, so the ancients devised methods of increasing the power of the voice in theaters through the application of the science of harmony.
Vitruvius
In Vitruvius Pollio and Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), 'Book V: Chapter III', Vitruvius, the Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 139. From the original Latin, “Ergo veteres Architecti, naturae vestigia persecuti, indagationibus vocis scandentes theatrorum perfecerunt gradationes: & quaesiuerunt per canonicam mathematicorum,& musicam rationem, ut quaecunq; vox effet in scena, clarior & suauior ad spectatorum perueniret aures. Uti enim organa in aeneis laminis, aut corneis, diesi ad chordarum sonituum claritatem perficiuntur: sic theatrorum, per harmonicen ad augendam vocem, ratiocinationes ab antiquis sunt constitutae.” In De Architectura libri decem (1552), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Acoustics (4)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Application (257)  |  Board (13)  |  Bronze (5)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Devise (16)  |  Harmonic (4)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Horn (18)  |  Increase (225)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Music (133)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Plate (7)  |  Power (771)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  String (22)  |  Through (846)  |  Voice (54)

Fourier’s Theorem … is not only one of the most beautiful results of modern analysis, but it may be said to furnish an indispensable instrument in the treatment of nearly every recondite question in modern physics. To mention only sonorous vibrations, the propagation of electric signals along a telegraph wire, and the conduction of heat by the earth’s crust, as subjects in their generality intractable without it, is to give but a feeble idea of its importance.
In William Thomson and Peter Guthrie Tait, Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867), Vol. 1, 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Conduction (8)  |  Crust (43)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electric (76)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Baron Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (17)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Generality (45)  |  Heat (180)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intractable (3)  |  Mention (84)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Recondite (8)  |  Result (700)  |  Signal (29)  |  Subject (543)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Wire (36)

Fractals are patterns which occur on many levels. This concept can be applied to any musical parameter. I make melodic fractals, where the pitches of a theme I dream up are used to determine a melodic shape on several levels, in space and time. I make rhythmic fractals, where a set of durations associated with a motive get stretched and compressed and maybe layered on top of each other. I make loudness fractals, where the characteristic loudness of a sound, its envelope shape, is found on several time scales. I even make fractals with the form of a piece, its instrumentation, density, range, and so on. Here I’ve separated the parameters of music, but in a real piece, all of these things are combined, so you might call it a fractal of fractals.
Interview (1999) on The Discovery Channel. As quoted by Benoit B. Manelbrot and Richard Hudson in The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward (2010), 133.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Associated (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Combined (3)  |  Compressed (3)  |  Concept (242)  |  Density (25)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dream (222)  |  Duration (12)  |  Envelope (6)  |  Form (976)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Instrumentation (4)  |  Layer (41)  |  Layered (2)  |  Level (69)  |  Loudness (3)  |  Motive (62)  |  Music (133)  |  Musical (10)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parameter (4)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Piece (39)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Range (104)  |  Real (159)  |  Rhythmic (2)  |  Scale (122)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Separate (151)  |  Set (400)  |  Shape (77)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Stretched (2)  |  Theme (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Top (100)

Genius itself has been analyzed by the shrewdest observers into a higher capacity of attention. “Genius,” says Helvetius … “is nothing but a continued attention,” (une attention suivie). “Genius,” says Buffon, “is only a protracted patience,” (une longue patience). “In the exact sciences, at least,” says Cuvier, “it is the patience of a sound intellect, when invincible, which truly constitutes genius.” And Chesterfield has also observed, that “the power of applying an attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of a superior genius.”
In Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1860), Vol. 1, 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Comte Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (37)  |  Capacity (105)  |  The Earl of Chesterfield (4)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Baron Georges Cuvier (34)  |  Genius (301)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Invincible (6)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observed (149)  |  Patience (58)  |  Power (771)  |  Protracted (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Steady (45)  |  Superior (88)  |  Truly (118)

Grand telegraphic discovery today … Transmitted vocal sounds for the first time ... With some further modification I hope we may be enabled to distinguish … the “timbre” of the sound. Should this be so, conversation viva voce by telegraph will be a fait accompli.
Postscript (P.S.) on page 3 of letter to Sarah Fuller (1 Jul 1875). Bell Papers, Library of Congress.
Science quotes on:  |  Conversation (46)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  First (1302)  |  Hope (321)  |  Modification (57)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

Hear how the ripples make a sound of chaos!
From 'Sound of Breaking', collected in Selected Poems (1918, 2003), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Chaos (99)  |  Hear (144)  |  Ripple (12)

Here I most violently want you to
Avoid one fearful error, a vicious flaw.
Don’t think that our bright eyes were made that we
Might look ahead; that hips and knees and ankles
So intricately bend that we might take
Big strides, and the arms are strapped to the sturdy shoulders
And hands are given for servants to each side
That we might use them to support our lives.
All other explanations of this sort
Are twisted, topsy-turvy logic, for
Nothing what is born produces its own use.
Sight was not born before the light of the eyes,
Nor were words and pleas created before the tongue
Rather the tongue's appearance long preceded
Speech, and the ears were formed far earlier than
The sound first heard. To sum up, all the members Existed, I should think, before their use, So use has not caused them to have grown.
On the Nature of Things, trans. Anthony M. Esolen (1995), Book 4, lines 820-8, 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Bright (81)  |  Ear (69)  |  Error (339)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Form (976)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Servant (40)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Side (236)  |  Sight (135)  |  Speech (66)  |  Stride (15)  |  Sum (103)  |  Support (151)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Twist (10)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  Word (650)

How, indeed, can there be a response within to the impression from without when there is nothing within that is in relation of congenial vibration with that which is without? Inattention in such case is insusceptibility; and if this be complete, then to demand attention is very much like demanding of the eye that it should attend to sound-waves, and of the ear that it should attend to light-waves.
As quoted in William W. Speer, Primary Arithmetic: First Year, for the Use of Teachers (1902), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Attention (196)  |  Case (102)  |  Complete (209)  |  Congenial (3)  |  Demand (131)  |  Ear (69)  |  Education (423)  |  Eye (440)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inattention (5)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Light (635)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Relation (166)  |  Response (56)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Wave (112)

Human language is in some ways similar to, but in other ways vastly different from, other kinds of animal communication. We simply have no idea about its evolutionary history, though many people have speculated about its possible origins. There is, for instance, the “bow-bow” theory, that language started from attempts to imitate animal sounds. Or the “ding-dong” theory, that it arose from natural sound-producing responses. Or the “pooh-pooh” theory, that it began with violent outcries and exclamations.
We have no way of knowing whether the kinds of men represented by the earliest fossils could talk or not…
Language does not leave fossils, at least not until it has become written.
Man in Nature (1961), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Bow (15)  |  Communication (101)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exclamation (3)  |  Fossil (143)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Language (308)  |  Natural (810)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcry (3)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Represent (157)  |  Response (56)  |  Similar (36)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Start (237)  |  Talk (108)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Violent (17)  |  Way (1214)  |  Write (250)

I advise my students to listen carefully the moment they decide to take no more Mathematics courses. They might be able to hear the sound of closing doors.
From 'Everybody a Mathematician', CAIP Quarterly (Fall 1989), 2, as quoted and cited, as a space filler following article Reinhard C. Laubenbacher and Michael Siddoway, 'Great Problems of Mathematics: A Summer Workshop for High School Students', The College Mathematics Journal (Mar 1994), 25, No. 2, 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Advise (7)  |  Careful (28)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Closed (38)  |  Course (413)  |  Decide (50)  |  Door (94)  |  Hear (144)  |  Listen (81)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Student (317)

I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them upon the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge—knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt.
The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method, 2nd edition (1877), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Alone (324)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Induction (81)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Probability (135)  |  Theory (1015)

I can see him [Sylvester] now, with his white beard and few locks of gray hair, his forehead wrinkled o’er with thoughts, writing rapidly his figures and formulae on the board, sometimes explaining as he wrote, while we, his listeners, caught the reflected sounds from the board. But stop, something is not right, he pauses, his hand goes to his forehead to help his thought, he goes over the work again, emphasizes the leading points, and finally discovers his difficulty. Perhaps it is some error in his figures, perhaps an oversight in the reasoning. Sometimes, however, the difficulty is not elucidated, and then there is not much to the rest of the lecture. But at the next lecture we would hear of some new discovery that was the outcome of that difficulty, and of some article for the Journal, which he had begun. If a text-book had been taken up at the beginning, with the intention of following it, that text-book was most likely doomed to oblivion for the rest of the term, or until the class had been made listeners to every new thought and principle that had sprung from the laboratory of his mind, in consequence of that first difficulty. Other difficulties would soon appear, so that no text-book could last more than half of the term. In this way his class listened to almost all of the work that subsequently appeared in the Journal. It seemed to be the quality of his mind that he must adhere to one subject. He would think about it, talk about it to his class, and finally write about it for the Journal. The merest accident might start him, but once started, every moment, every thought was given to it, and, as much as possible, he read what others had done in the same direction; but this last seemed to be his real point; he could not read without finding difficulties in the way of understanding the author. Thus, often his own work reproduced what had been done by others, and he did not find it out until too late.
A notable example of this is in his theory of cyclotomic functions, which he had reproduced in several foreign journals, only to find that he had been greatly anticipated by foreign authors. It was manifest, one of the critics said, that the learned professor had not read Rummer’s elementary results in the theory of ideal primes. Yet Professor Smith’s report on the theory of numbers, which contained a full synopsis of Kummer’s theory, was Professor Sylvester’s constant companion.
This weakness of Professor Sylvester, in not being able to read what others had done, is perhaps a concomitant of his peculiar genius. Other minds could pass over little difficulties and not be troubled by them, and so go on to a final understanding of the results of the author. But not so with him. A difficulty, however small, worried him, and he was sure to have difficulties until the subject had been worked over in his own way, to correspond with his own mode of thought. To read the work of others, meant therefore to him an almost independent development of it. Like the man whose pleasure in life is to pioneer the way for society into the forests, his rugged mind could derive satisfaction only in hewing out its own paths; and only when his efforts brought him into the uncleared fields of mathematics did he find his place in the Universe.
In Florian Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 266-267.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Adhere (3)  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Appear (122)  |  Article (22)  |  Author (175)  |  Beard (8)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Board (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Bring (95)  |  Class (168)  |  Companion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contain (68)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Critic (21)  |  Derive (70)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doom (34)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elucidate (4)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Error (339)  |  Example (98)  |  Explain (334)  |  Field (378)  |  Figure (162)  |  Final (121)  |  Finally (26)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forehead (3)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Forest (161)  |  Formula (102)  |  Full (68)  |  Function (235)  |  Genius (301)  |  Give (208)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hair (25)  |  Half (63)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hear (144)  |  Help (116)  |  Hew (3)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intention (46)  |  Journal (31)  |  Ernst Eduard Kummer (3)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likely (36)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listener (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Notable (6)  |  Number (710)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Oversight (4)  |  Pass (241)  |  Path (159)  |  Pause (6)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Place (192)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prime (11)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quality (139)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Read (308)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Report (42)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Rugged (7)  |  Rum (3)  |  Same (166)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Several (33)  |  Small (489)  |  Smith (3)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  Start (237)  |  Stop (89)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subsequently (2)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Synopsis (2)  |  Talk (108)  |  Term (357)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weakness (50)  |  White (132)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worry (34)  |  Wrinkle (4)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

I despise Birth-Control first because it is ... an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would first recoil from its real meaning. The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth. ... But these people know perfectly well that they dare not write the plain word Birth-Prevention, in any one of the hundred places where they write the hypocritical word Birth-Control. They know as well as I do that the very word Birth-Prevention would strike a chill into the public... Therefore they use a conventional and unmeaning word, which may make the quack medicine sound more innocuous. ... A child is the very sign and sacrament of personal freedom. He is a fresh will added to the wills of the world; he is something that his parents have freely chosen to produce ... he is their own creative contribution to creation.
In 'Babies and Distributism', The Well and the Shadows (1935). Collected in G. K. Chesterton and Dale Ahlquist (ed.), In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton (2011), 272.
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Child (333)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Control (182)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Dare (55)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Favor (69)  |  First (1302)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hypocrite (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Parent (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Quack (18)  |  Real (159)  |  Recoil (6)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Recommendation (12)  |  Sacrament (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Strike (72)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

I do not think words alone will solve humanity’s present problems. The sound of bombs drowns out men’s voices. In times of peace I have great faith in the communication of ideas among thinking men, but today, with brute force dominating so many millions of lives, I fear that the appeal to man’s intellect is fast becoming virtually meaningless.
In 'I Am an American' (22 Jun 1940), Einstein Archives 29-092. Excerpted in David E. Rowe and Robert J. Schulmann, Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb (2007), 470. It was during a radio broadcast for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, interviewed by a State Department Official. Einstein spoke following an examination on his application for American citizenship in Trenton, New Jersey. The attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s declaration of war on Japan was still over a year in the future.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Bomb (20)  |  Brute (30)  |  Brute Force (4)  |  Communication (101)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drown (14)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fear (212)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Million (124)  |  Peace (116)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solve (145)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Voice (54)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

I had made up my mind to find that for which I was searching even if it required the remainder of my life. After innumerable failures I finally uncovered the principle for which I was searching, and I was astounded at its simplicity. I was still more astounded to discover the principle I had revealed not only beneficial in the construction of a mechanical hearing aid but it served as well as means of sending the sound of the voice over a wire. Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that when a man gives his order to produce a definite result and stands by that order it seems to have the effect of giving him what might be termed a second sight which enables him to see right through ordinary problems. What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.
As quoted, without citation, in Mack R. Douglas, Making a Habit of Success: How to Make a Habit of Succeeding, How to Win With High Self-Esteem (1966, 1994), 38. Note: Webmaster is dubious of a quote which seems to appear in only one source, without a citation, decades after Bell’s death. If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Astound (9)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Construction (114)  |  Definite (114)  |  Determined (9)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enable (122)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Term (357)  |  Through (846)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Want (504)  |  Wire (36)

I have always liked horticulturists, people who make their living from orchards and gardens, whose hands are familiar with the feel of the bark, whose eyes are trained to distinguish the different varieties, who have a form memory. Their brains are not forever dealing with vague abstractions; they are satisfied with the romance which the seasons bring with them, and have the patience and fortitude to gamble their lives and fortunes in an industry which requires infinite patience, which raise hopes each spring and too often dashes them to pieces in fall. They are always conscious of sun and wind and rain; must always be alert lest they lose the chance of ploughing at the right moment, pruning at the right time, circumventing the attacks of insects and fungus diseases by quick decision and prompt action. They are manufacturers of a high order, whose business requires not only intelligence of a practical character, but necessitates an instinct for industry which is different from that required by the city dweller always within sight of other people and the sound of their voices. The successful horticulturist spends much time alone among his trees, away from the constant chatter of human beings.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Action (342)  |  Alert (13)  |  Alone (324)  |  Attack (86)  |  Bark (19)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brain (281)  |  Business (156)  |  Chance (244)  |  Character (259)  |  City (87)  |  Constant (148)  |  Decision (98)  |  Different (595)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Feel (371)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Fungus (8)  |  Garden (64)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Horticulture (10)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Industry (159)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Insect (89)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lose (165)  |  Memory (144)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patience (58)  |  People (1031)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prompt (14)  |  Pruning (7)  |  Rain (70)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Right (473)  |  Romance (18)  |  Season (47)  |  Sight (135)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spring (140)  |  Successful (134)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Train (118)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vague (50)  |  Wind (141)

I have known silence: the cold earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun;… I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather.
Letter to Lee McGeorge (31 Jul 1978). Collected in Letters of Note: Volume 2: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence (2016), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Bach (7)  |  Bat (10)  |  Bone (101)  |  Cave (17)  |  Cicada (3)  |  Cobweb (6)  |  Cold (115)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Cry (30)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deer (11)  |  Everything (489)  |  Eye (440)  |  Firefly (8)  |  Forest (161)  |  Frog (44)  |  Glacier (17)  |  Golden (47)  |  Groan (6)  |  Hot (63)  |  Implacable (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Midday (4)  |  Old (499)  |  Orchestration (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Rattlesnake (2)  |  Roar (6)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seal (19)  |  Silence (62)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Squeak (3)  |  Staccato (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sun (407)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Tree (269)  |  Tree Frog (2)  |  Way (1214)

I have long recognized the theory and aesthetic of such comprehensive display: show everything and incite wonder by sheer variety. But I had never realized how power fully the decor of a cabinet museum can promote this goal until I saw the Dublin [Natural History Museum] fixtures redone right ... The exuberance is all of one piece–organic and architectural. I write this essay to offer my warmest congratulations to the Dublin Museum for choosing preservation–a decision not only scientifically right, but also ethically sound and decidedly courageous. The avant-garde is not an exclusive locus of courage; a principled stand within a reconstituted rear unit may call down just as much ridicule and demand equal fortitude. Crowds do not always rush off in admirable or defendable directions.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Cabinet (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Choose (116)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Congratulation (5)  |  Congratulations (3)  |  Courage (82)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Decidedly (2)  |  Decision (98)  |  Demand (131)  |  Direction (185)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Dublin (3)  |  Equal (88)  |  Essay (27)  |  Ethically (4)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Exuberance (3)  |  Fixture (2)  |  Fortitude (2)  |  Fully (20)  |  Goal (155)  |  History (716)  |  Incite (3)  |  Locus (5)  |  Long (778)  |  Museum (40)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Never (1089)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organic (161)  |  Piece (39)  |  Power (771)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Principle (530)  |  Promote (32)  |  Realize (157)  |  Rear (7)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reconstitute (2)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Right (473)  |  Rush (18)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scientifically (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Sheer (9)  |  Show (353)  |  Stand (284)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unit (36)  |  Variety (138)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Write (250)

I have read somewhere that the resistance offered by a wire ... is affected by the tension of the wire. If this is so, a continuous current of electricity passed through a vibrating wire should meet with a varying resistance, and hence a pulsatory action should be induced in the current ... [corresponding] in amplitude, as well as in rate of movement, to the vibrations of the string ... [Thus] the timbre of a sound [a quality essential to intelligible speech] could be transmitted ... [and] the strength of the current can be increased ad libitum without destroying the relative intensities of the vibrations.
Letter to Gardiner Greene Hubbard (4 May 1875), 3-4. Bell Papers, Library of Congress.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Amplitude (4)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Current (122)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Essential (210)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Movement (162)  |  Offer (142)  |  Pass (241)  |  Quality (139)  |  Read (308)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Speech (66)  |  Strength (139)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Tension (24)  |  Through (846)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Wire (36)

I have sometimes experienced from nitrous oxide, sensations similar to no others, and they have consequently been indescribable. This has been likewise often the case with other persons. Of two paralytic patients who were asked what they felt after breathing nitrous oxide, the first answered, “I do not know how, but very queer.” The second said, “I felt like the sound of a harp.”
Referring to his investigation of the effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Do (1905)  |  Feeling (259)  |  First (1302)  |  Harp (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Queer (9)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Two (936)

I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Hear (144)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  Pale (9)  |  Range (104)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sun (407)

I here present the reader with a new sign which I have discovered for detecting diseases of the chest. This consists in percussion of the human thorax, whereby, according to the character of the particular sounds then elicited, an opinion is formed of the internal state of that cavity.
New Invention by Means of Percussing the Human Thorax for Detecting Signs of Obscure Disease of the Interior of the Chest, Inventum novum ex percussione (31 Dec 1761).
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Cavity (9)  |  Character (259)  |  Chest (3)  |  Consist (223)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disease (340)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Internal (69)  |  New (1273)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Present (630)  |  State (505)

I must admit that when I chose the name, “vitamine,” I was well aware that these substances might later prove not to be of an amine nature. However, it was necessary for me to choose a name that would sound well and serve as a catchword, since I had already at that time no doubt about the importance and the future popularity of the new field.
The Vitamines translated by Harry Ennis Dubin (1922), 26, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Amine (2)  |  Catchword (3)  |  Choose (116)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Field (378)  |  Future (467)  |  Importance (299)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Prove (261)  |  Substance (253)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vitamin (13)

I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of sound speculation in dynamical science.
In lecture, 'The Sun's Heat' delivered to the Friday Evening Discourse in Physical Science at the Royal Institution in London. Collected in Popular Lectures and Addresses (1889), Vol. 1, 415.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maintenance (21)  |  Range (104)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Speculation (137)

I remember one occasion when I tried to add a little seasoning to a review, but I wasn’t allowed to. The paper was by Dorothy Maharam, and it was a perfectly sound contribution to abstract measure theory. The domains of the underlying measures were not sets but elements of more general Boolean algebras, and their range consisted not of positive numbers but of certain abstract equivalence classes. My proposed first sentence was: “The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces.”
In I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Allow (51)  |  Author (175)  |  Boolean Algebra (2)  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Domain (72)  |  Element (322)  |  Equivalence (7)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Little (717)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pointless (7)  |  Positive (98)  |  Propose (24)  |  Range (104)  |  Remember (189)  |  Review (27)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Set (400)  |  Space (523)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Valueless (3)

I shall never forget my first encounter with gorillas. Sound preceded sight. Odor preceded sound in the form of an overwhelming, musky-barnyard, humanlike scent. The air was suddenly rent by a high-pitched series of screams followed by the rhythmic rondo of sharp pok-pok chestbeats from a great silverbacked male obscured behind what seemed an impenetrable wall of vegetation.
Describing her 1963 trip to Kabara in Gorillas in the Mist (1983), 3. (The screams and chest-beating were of alarm, not ferocity.)
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Barnyard (2)  |  Behind (139)  |  Encounter (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forget (125)  |  Form (976)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Impenetrable (7)  |  Musk (2)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Odor (11)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Scent (7)  |  Scream (7)  |  Series (153)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Sight (135)  |  Silverback (2)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wall (71)

I should rejoice to see … Euclid honourably shelved or buried “deeper than did ever plummet sound” out of the schoolboys’ reach; morphology introduced into the elements of algebra; projection, correlation, and motion accepted as aids to geometry; the mind of the student quickened and elevated and his faith awakened by early initiation into the ruling ideas of polarity, continuity, infinity, and familiarization with the doctrines of the imaginary and inconceivable.
From Presidential Address (1869) to the British Association, Exeter, Section A, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of Lames Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 657. Also in George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 93. [Note: “plummet sound” refers to ocean depth measurement (sound) from a ship using a line dropped with a weight (plummet). —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Aid (101)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Awaken (17)  |  Bury (19)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Correlation (19)  |  Deep (241)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Early (196)  |  Element (322)  |  Elevate (15)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Faith (209)  |  Familiarization (2)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imaginary (16)  |  Inconceivable (13)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Initiation (8)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Plummet (2)  |  Polarity (5)  |  Projection (5)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rejoice (11)  |  Rule (307)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  See (1094)  |  Shelve (2)  |  Student (317)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)

I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record. … There is a big gap between what the facts are, and what the perceptions are. … I mean “genetically modified” sounds Frankensteinish. Drought-resistant sounds really like something you’d want.
Speech at Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) convention, San Diego (Jun 2014). Audio on AgWired website.
Science quotes on:  |  Drought (14)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Favor (69)  |  Frankenstein (3)  |  Gap (36)  |  Mean (810)  |  Perception (97)  |  Product (166)  |  Record (161)  |  Seed (97)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Term (357)  |  Track (42)  |  Track Record (4)  |  Want (504)

I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: “Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.” To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said. I asked him to repeat the words. He answered “You said—‘Mr. Watson—-come here—I want to see you.’” We then changed places and I listened at S [the reed receiver] while Mr. Watson read a few passages from a book into the mouth piece M. It was certainly the case that articulate sounds proceeded from S. The effect was loud but indistinct and muffled. If I had read beforehand the passage given by Mr. Watson I should have recognized every word. As it was I could not make out the sense—but an occasional word here and there was quite distinct. I made out “to” and “out” and “further”; and finally the sentence “Mr. Bell do you understand what I say? Do—you—un—der—stand—what—I—say” came quite clearly and intelligibly. No sound was audible when the armature S was removed.
Notebook, 'Experiments made by A. Graham Bell, vol. I'. Entry for 10 March 1876. Quoted in Robert V. Bruce, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (1973), 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bell (35)  |  Book (413)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Declared (24)  |  Delight (111)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Listen (81)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Notebook (4)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Passage (52)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Read (308)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shout (25)  |  Stand (284)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Want (504)  |  Word (650)

I think it’s time we recognized the Dark Ages are over. Galileo and Copernicus have been proven right. The world is in fact round; the Earth does revolve around the sun. I believe God gave us intellect to differentiate between imprisoning dogma and sound ethical science, which is what we must do here today.
Debating federal funding for stem cell research as Republican Representative (CT).
In Eve Herold, George Daley, Stem Cell Wars (2007), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Funding (20)  |  God (776)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Must (1525)  |  Proof (304)  |  Research (753)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Right (473)  |  Stem (31)  |  Stem Cell (11)  |  Sun (407)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  World (1850)

I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by “chlorophyll,” which at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called “green leaf,” we should see more precisely how far we had got.
The word “chlorophyll” is formed from the Greek words for “green” “leaf.” In The Queen of the Air: a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm (1869, 1889), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Chlorophyll (5)  |  Color (155)  |  English (35)  |  First (1302)  |  Greek (109)  |  Green (65)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leaf (73)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)

I would clarify that by ‘animal’ I understand a being that has feeling and that is capable of exercising life functions through a principle called soul; that the soul uses the body's organs, which are true machines, by virtue of its being the principal cause of the action of each of the machine's parts; and that although the placement that these parts have with respect to one another does scarcely anything else through the soul's mediation than what it does in pure machines, the entire machine nonetheless needs to be activated and guided by the soul in the same way as an organ, which, although capable of rendering different sounds through the placement of the parts of which it is composed, nonetheless never does so except through the guidance of the organist.
'La Mechanique des Animaux', in Oeuvres Diverses de Physique et de Mechanique (1721), Vol. 1, 329. Quoted in Jacques Roger, Keith R. Benson (ed.), Robert Ellrich (trans.), The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, (1997), 273-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Activation (6)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clarification (8)  |  Composition (86)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Function (235)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mediation (4)  |  Never (1089)  |  Organ (118)  |  Part (235)  |  Principal (69)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pure (299)  |  Respect (212)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Soul (235)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)

I would have you to observe that the difficulty & mystery which often appear in matters of science & learning are only owing to the terms of art used in them, & if many gentlemen had not been rebuted by the uncouth dress in which science was offered to them, we must believe that many of these who now shew an acute & sound judgement in the affairs of life would also in science have excelled many of those who are devoted to it & who were engaged in it only by necessity & a phlegmatic temper. This is particularly the case with respect to chemistry, which is as easy to be comprehended as any of the common affairs of life, but gentlemen have been kept from applying to it by the jargon in which it has been industriously involved.
Cullen MSS, No. 23, Glasgow University library. In A. L. Donovan, Philosophical Chemistry In the Scottish Enlightenment: The Doctrines and Discoveries of Wllliam Cullen and Joseph Black (1975), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Common (447)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Easy (213)  |  Involved (90)  |  Jargon (13)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Observe (179)  |  Offer (142)  |  Owing (39)  |  Respect (212)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)

If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his statements might well sound like '2 x 2= 13'.
Lichtenberg: Aphorisms & Letters (1969), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Equation (138)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Statement (148)  |  Tell (344)

If I were a physician I would try my patients thus. I would wheel them to a window and let Nature feel their pulse. It will soon appear if their sensuous existence is sound. The sounds are but the throbbing of some pulse in me.
(26 Feb 1841). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: I: 1837-1846 (1906), 224.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feel (371)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Sensuous (5)  |  Soon (187)  |  Throb (6)  |  Try (296)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Window (59)

If man were by nature a solitary animal, the passions of the soul by which he was conformed to things so as to have knowledge of them would be sufficient for him; but since he is by nature a political and social animal it was necessary that his conceptions be made known to others. This he does through vocal sound. Therefore there had to be significant vocal sounds in order that men might live together. Whence those who speak different languages find it difficult to live together in social unity.
As quoted in Jeffrey J. Maciejewski, Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric (2013), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Conception (160)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Find (1014)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Political (124)  |  Significant (78)  |  Social (261)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Soul (235)  |  Speak (240)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Unity (81)  |  Voice (54)

If you had come to me a hundred years ago, do you think I should have dreamed of the telephone? Why, even now I cannot understand it! I use it every day, I transact half my correspondence by means of it, but I don’t understand it. Thnk of that little stretched disk of iron at the end of a wire repeating in your ear not only sounds, but words—not only words, but all the most delicate and elusive inflections and nuances of tone which separate one human voice from another! Is not that something of a miracle?
Quoted in Harold Begbie in Pall Mall magazine (Jan 1903). In Albert Shaw, The American Monthly Review of Reviews (1903), 27, 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ear (69)  |  End (603)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Iron (99)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Most (1728)  |  Separate (151)  |  Something (718)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tone (22)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)  |  Why (491)  |  Wire (36)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

In 1963, when I assigned the name “quark” to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been “kwork.” Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word “quark” in the phrase “Three quarks for Muster Mark.” Since “quark” (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with “Mark,” as well as “bark” and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as “kwork.” But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the “portmanteau words” in Through the Looking Glass. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry “Three quarks for Muster Mark” might be pronunciation for “Three quarts for Mister Mark,” in which case the pronunciation “kwork” would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.
The Quark and the Jaguar (1994), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Bark (19)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Cry (30)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drink (56)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Glass (94)  |  Looking (191)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nucleon (5)  |  Number (710)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Partially (8)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Portmanteau (2)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Quark (9)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rhyme (6)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

In order to imbue civilization with sound principles and enliven it with the spirit of the gospel, it is not enough to be illumined with the gift of faith and enkindled with the desire of forwarding a good cause. For this end it is necessary to take an active part in the various organizations and influence them from within. And since our present age is one of outstanding scientific and technical progress and excellence, one will not be able to enter these organizations and work effectively from within unless he is scientifically competent, technically capable and skilled in the practice of his own profession.
Encyclical (10 Apr 1963). In Pacem in Terris, Pt. 5, 50
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Age (509)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Desire (212)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Faith (209)  |  Gift (105)  |  Good (906)  |  Influence (231)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Order (638)  |  Organization (120)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profession (108)  |  Progress (492)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skill (116)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Technology (281)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Inductive reasoning is, of course, good guessing, not sound reasoning, but the finest results in science have been obtained in this way. Calling the guess a “working hypothesis,” its consequences are tested by experiment in every conceivable way.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Finest (3)  |  Good (906)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Test (221)  |  Way (1214)

It has long been a complaint against mathematicians that they are hard to convince: but it is a far greater disqualification both for philosophy, and for the affairs of life, to be too easily convinced; to have too low a standard of proof. The only sound intellects are those which, in the first instance, set their standards of proof high. Practice in concrete affairs soon teaches them to make the necessary abatement: but they retain the consciousness, without which there is no sound practical reasoning, that in accepting inferior evidence because there is no better to be had, they do not by that acceptance raise it to completeness.
In An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1878), 611.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Affair (29)  |  Against (332)  |  Better (493)  |  Both (496)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Convince (43)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Disqualification (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Easily (36)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Far (158)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hard (246)  |  High (370)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Instance (33)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Low (86)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practice (212)  |  Proof (304)  |  Raise (38)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Retain (57)  |  Set (400)  |  Soon (187)  |  Standard (64)  |  Teach (299)

It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin proved “that the subject was in the air,” or “that men's minds were prepared for it.” I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species.
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Never (1089)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Species (435)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)

It is agreed that all sound which is the material of music is of three sorts. First is harmonica, which consists of vocal music; second is organica, which is formed from the breath; third is rhythmica, which receives its numbers from the beat of the fingers. For sound is produced either by the voice, coming through the throat; or by the breath, coming through the trumpet or tibia, for example; or by touch, as in the case of the cithara or anything else that gives a tuneful sound on being struck.
Etymologies [c.600], Book III, chapter 19, quoted in E. Grant (ed.), A Source Book in Medieval Science (1974), trans. E. Brehaut (1912), revised by E. Grant, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Breath (61)  |  Coming (114)  |  Consist (223)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Material (366)  |  Music (133)  |  Number (710)  |  Produced (187)  |  Receive (117)  |  Throat (10)  |  Through (846)  |  Touch (146)  |  Voice (54)

It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment... It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory.
In 'The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature', Scientific American, May 1963, 208, 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Complete (209)  |  Development (441)  |  Discrepancy (7)  |  Due (143)  |  Equation (138)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fit (139)  |  Insight (107)  |  More (2558)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Progress (492)  |  Result (700)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

It is rigid dogma that destroys truth; and, please notice, my emphasis is not on the dogma, but on the rigidity. When men say of any question, “This is all there is to be known or said of the subject; investigation ends here,” that is death. It may be that the mischief comes not from the thinker but for the use made of his thinking by late-comers. Aristotle, for example, gave us our scientific technique … yet his logical propositions, his instruction in sound reasoning which was bequeathed to Europe, are valid only within the limited framework of formal logic, and, as used in Europe, they stultified the minds of whole generations of mediaeval Schoolmen. Aristotle invented science, but destroyed philosophy.
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, as recorded by Lucien Price (1954, 2001), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Death (406)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dogma (49)  |  End (603)  |  Framework (33)  |  Generation (256)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Notice (81)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Please (68)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Question (649)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Subject (543)  |  Technique (84)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)

It is the middle of the night when a glittering theatre of light suddenly appears in front of the Dhaka. Where, moments before there was only darkness, suddenly there are hundreds of columns of light. The sound of helicopters and car horns carry across to the ship on the breeze. There is the scent of rain after it has evaporated from warm streets. This is unmistakably Singapore, the small city-state at the most southern point of the Asiatic mainland. Singapore was built as a centre for world trade by the British over 250 years ago, and today, Singapore has the largest container harbour in the world. This is where the axes of world trade cross paths: from the Far East to Europe, from the Far East to Southeast Asia/the East, and from the Far East to Australia. Everything runs like clockwork here. Within five hours the Dhaka has been unloaded.
Made on Earth
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Appear (122)  |  Asia (7)  |  Australia (11)  |  Axe (16)  |  Breeze (8)  |  British (42)  |  Build (211)  |  Car (75)  |  Carry (130)  |  Centre (31)  |  City (87)  |  Clockwork (7)  |  Column (15)  |  Container (2)  |  Cross (20)  |  Darkness (72)  |  East (18)  |  Europe (50)  |  Evaporate (5)  |  Everything (489)  |  Far (158)  |  Five (16)  |  Front (16)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Harbor (8)  |  Helicopter (2)  |  Horn (18)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hundreds (6)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Light (635)  |  Mainland (3)  |  Middle (19)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Night (133)  |  Path (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Rain (70)  |  Run (158)  |  Scent (7)  |  Ship (69)  |  Singapore (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Southern (3)  |  State (505)  |  Street (25)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Theatre (5)  |  Today (321)  |  Trade (34)  |  Unmistakably (2)  |  Warm (74)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

It may sound like a lot of work to keep up with organic chemistry, and it is; however, those who haven't the time to do it become subject to decay in the ability to teach and to contribute to the Science—a sort of first-order process the half-life of which can't be much more than a year or two.
Highlights of Organic Chemistry: An Advanced Textbook (1974), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Decay (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Half-Life (3)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lot (151)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Process (439)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

It was shortly after midday on December 12, 1901, [in a hut on the cliffs at St. John’s, Newfoundland] that I placed a single earphone to my ear and started listening. The receiver on the table before me was very crude—a few coils and condensers and a coherer—no valves [vacuum tubes], no amplifiers, not even a crystal. I was at last on the point of putting the correctness of all my beliefs to test. … [The] answer came at 12:30. … Suddenly, about half past twelve there sounded the sharp click of the “tapper” … Unmistakably, the three sharp clicks corresponding to three dots sounded in my ear. “Can you hear anything, Mr. Kemp?” I asked, handing the telephone to my assistant. Kemp heard the same thing as I. … I knew then that I had been absolutely right in my calculations. The electric waves which were being sent out from Poldhu [Cornwall, England] had travelled the Atlantic, serenely ignoring the curvature of the earth which so many doubters considered a fatal obstacle. … I knew that the day on which I should be able to send full messages without wires or cables across the Atlantic was not far distant.
As quoted in Degna Marconi, My Father, Marconi (2000), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Amplifier (3)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atlantic Ocean (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cable (11)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Click (4)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Coil (4)  |  Condenser (4)  |  Consider (428)  |  Correctness (12)  |  Crude (32)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Curvature (8)  |  Dot (18)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electric (76)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hear (144)  |  Ignoring (11)  |  Last (425)  |  Listening (26)  |  Message (53)  |  Midday (4)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Past (355)  |  Point (584)  |  Radio (60)  |  Receiver (5)  |  Right (473)  |  Single (365)  |  Start (237)  |  Success (327)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Table (105)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Vacuum Tube (2)  |  Valve (2)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wire (36)

J. J. Sylvester was an enthusiastic supporter of reform [in the teaching of geometry]. The difference in attitude on this question between the two foremost British mathematicians, J. J. Sylvester, the algebraist, and Arthur Cayley, the algebraist and geometer, was grotesque. Sylvester wished to bury Euclid “deeper than e’er plummet sounded” out of the schoolboy’s reach; Cayley, an ardent admirer of Euclid, desired the retention of Simson’s Euclid. When reminded that this treatise was a mixture of Euclid and Simson, Cayley suggested striking out Simson’s additions and keeping strictly to the original treatise.
In History of Elementary Mathematics (1910), 285.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Admirer (9)  |  Ardent (6)  |  Attitude (84)  |  British (42)  |  Bury (19)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Deep (241)  |  Desire (212)  |  Difference (355)  |  Enthusiastic (7)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Foremost (11)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Grotesque (6)  |  Keep (104)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Original (61)  |  Plummet (2)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reform (22)  |  Remind (16)  |  Retention (5)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Strike (72)  |  Striking (48)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Supporter (4)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Two (936)  |  Wish (216)

Just as in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, an individual comes into being, so to speak, grows, remains in being, declines and passes on, will it not be the same for entire species? If our faith did not teach us that animals left the Creator's hands just as they now appear and, if it were permitted to entertain the slightest doubt as to their beginning and their end, may not a philosopher, left to his own conjectures, suspect that, from time immemorial, animal life had its own constituent elements, scattered and intermingled with the general body of matter, and that it happened when these constituent elements came together because it was possible for them to do so; that the embryo formed from these elements went through innumerable arrangements and developments, successively acquiring movement, feeling, ideas, thought, reflection, consciousness, feelings, emotions, signs, gestures, sounds, articulate sounds, language, laws, arts and sciences; that millions of years passed between each of these developments, and there may be other developments or kinds of growth still to come of which we know nothing; that a stationary point either has been or will be reached; that the embryo either is, or will be, moving away from this point through a process of everlasting decay, during which its faculties will leave it in the same way as they arrived; that it will disappear for ever from nature-or rather, that it will continue to exist there, but in a form and with faculties very different from those it displays at this present point in time? Religion saves us from many deviations, and a good deal of work. Had religion not enlightened us on the origin of the world and the universal system of being, what a multitude of different hypotheses we would have been tempted to take as nature's secret! Since these hypotheses are all equally wrong, they would all have seemed almost equally plausible. The question of why anything exists is the most awkward that philosophy can raise- and Revelation alone provides the answer.
Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works (1753/4), ed. D. Adams (1999), Section LVIII, 75-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Art (680)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Continue (179)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deal (192)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decline (28)  |  Development (441)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Different (595)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Element (322)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Emotion (106)  |  End (603)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exist (458)  |  Faith (209)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Save (126)  |  Secret (216)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Universal (198)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

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

Listen now for the sound that forevermore separates the old from the new.
[Introducing the beep-beep chirp transmitted by the Sputnik satellite.]
NBC Radio
NBC radio announcer on the night of 4 Oct 1957. In 'The Nation: Red Moon Over the U.S.', Time (14 Oct 1957), 70, 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Forever (111)  |  Listen (81)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Sputnik (5)

Man … begins life as an ambiguous speck of matter which can in no way be distinguished from the original form of the lowest animal or plant. He next becomes a cell; his life is precisely that of the animalcule. Cells cluster round this primordial cell, and the man is so far advanced that he might be mistaken for an undeveloped oyster; he grows still more, and it is clear that he might even be a fish; he then passes into a stage which is common to all quadrupeds, and next assumes a form which can only belong to quadrupeds of the higher type. At last the hour of birth approaches; coiled within the dark womb he sits, the image of an ape; a caricature of the man that is to be. He is born, and for some time he walks only on all fours; he utters only inarticulate sounds; and even in his boyhood his fondness for climbing trees would seem to be a relic of the old arboreal life.
In The Martyrdom of Man (1876), 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambiguous (14)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animalcule (12)  |  Ape (54)  |  Arboreal (8)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Belong (168)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boy (100)  |  Caricature (6)  |  Cell (146)  |  Climbing (9)  |  Cluster (16)  |  Common (447)  |  Dark (145)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fondness (7)  |  Form (976)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hour (192)  |  Image (97)  |  Inarticulate (2)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Old (499)  |  Oyster (12)  |  Plant (320)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Quadruped (4)  |  Relic (8)  |  Sit (51)  |  Speck (25)  |  Stage (152)  |  Still (614)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Type (171)  |  Undeveloped (6)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Womb (25)

Modern Science, as training the mind to an exact and impartial analysis of facts is an education specially fitted to promote sound citizenship.
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Citizenship (9)  |  Education (423)  |  Exact (75)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Impartial (4)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Promote (32)  |  Training (92)

Music may be called the sister of painting, for she is dependent upon hearing, the sense which comes second and her harmony is composed of the union of proportional parts sounded simultaneously, rising and falling in one or more harmonic rhythms.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Compose (20)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Fall (243)  |  Harmonic (4)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Painting (46)  |  Part (235)  |  Proportional (5)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Second (66)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Sister (8)  |  Union (52)

Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Breathe (49)  |  Existence (481)  |  Eye (440)  |  Heart (243)  |  Influence (231)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Purify (9)  |  Search (175)  |  Sight (135)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Unfold (15)

Nature without learning is a blind thing, and learning without nature is an imperfect thing, and practice without both is an ineffective thing. Just as in farming, first of all the soil must be good, secondly, the husbandman skilful, and thirdly, the seed sound, so, after the same manner, nature is like to the soil, the teacher to the farmer and the verbal counsels precepts like to the seed.
Plutarch
In 'On the Education of Children', Moralia (1927), Vol 3, 9, as translated by Frank Cole Babbitt.
Science quotes on:  |  Blind (98)  |  Both (496)  |  Counsel (11)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Farming (8)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Ineffective (6)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Practice (212)  |  Precept (10)  |  Seed (97)  |  Skill (116)  |  Soil (98)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thing (1914)

No process of sound reasoning can establish a result not contained in the premises.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Contain (68)  |  Establish (63)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Premise (40)  |  Process (439)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Result (700)

O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determin’d to press my way toward you;
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after you.
In poem, 'Great are the Myths', Leaves of Grass (1867), 292.
Science quotes on:  |  Determined (9)  |  Dive (13)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sea (326)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Voice (54)  |  Way (1214)

October 9, 1863
Always, however great the height of the balloon, when I have seen the horizon it has roughly appeared to be on the level of the car though of course the dip of the horizon is a very appreciable quantity or the same height as the eye. From this one might infer that, could the earth be seen without a cloud or anything to obscure it, and the boundary line of the plane approximately the same height as the eye, the general appearance would be that of a slight concavity; but I have never seen any part of the surface of the earth other than as a plane.
Towns and cities, when viewed from the balloon are like models in motion. I shall always remember the ascent of 9th October, 1863, when we passed over London about sunset. At the time when we were 7,000 feet high, and directly over London Bridge, the scene around was one that cannot probably be equalled in the world. We were still so low as not to have lost sight of the details of the spectacle which presented itself to our eyes; and with one glance the homes of 3,000,000 people could be seen, and so distinct was the view, that every large building was easily distinguishable. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts most clearly. All round, the suburbs were also very distinct, with their lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in a mass of shrubs; beyond, the country was like a garden, its fields, well marked, becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered farther and farther away.
Again looking down, there was the Thames, throughout its whole length, without the slightest mist, dotted over its winding course with innumerable ships and steamboats, like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, also the mouth of the Thames, and the coast around as far as Norfolk. The southern shore of the mouth of the Thames was not so clear, but the sea beyond was seen for many miles; when at a higher elevation, I looked for the coast of France, but was unable to see it. On looking round, the eye was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed yet more careful attention.
Smoke, thin and blue, was curling from it, and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all except one part, south of the Thames, where it was less blue and seemed more dense, till the cause became evident; it was mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limit of which was bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, everywhere free from cloud, except near the horizon, where a band of cumulus and stratus extended all round, forming a fitting boundary to such a glorious view.
As seen from the earth, the sunset this evening was described as fine, the air being clear and the shadows well defined; but, as we rose to view it and its effects, the golden hues increased in intensity; their richness decreased as the distance from the sun increased, both right and left; but still as far as 90º from the sun, rose-coloured clouds extended. The remainder of the circle was completed, for the most part, by pure white cumulus of well-rounded and symmetrical forms.
I have seen London by night. I have crossed it during the day at the height of four miles. I have often admired the splendour of sky scenery, but never have I seen anything which surpassed this spectacle. The roar of the town heard at this elevation was a deep, rich, continuous sound the voice of labour. At four miles above London, all was hushed; no sound reached our ears.
Travels in the Air (1871), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Bound (120)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Building (158)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completed (30)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Farther (51)  |  Field (378)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Low (86)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mist (17)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shrub (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Smoke (32)  |  South (39)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Suburb (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Thames (6)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wander (44)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  World (1850)

Of plain, sound sense, life’s current coin is made; With that we drive the most substantial trade.
In Hialmer Day Gould, New Practical Spelling (1905), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Coin (13)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Current (122)  |  Drive (61)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Plain (34)  |  Sense (785)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Trade (34)

Our ancestors, when about to build a town or an army post, sacrificed some of the cattle that were wont to feed on the site proposed and examined their livers. If the livers of the first victims were dark-coloured or abnormal, they sacrificed others, to see whether the fault was due to disease or their food. They never began to build defensive works in a place until after they had made many such trials and satisfied themselves that good water and food had made the liver sound and firm. …healthfulness being their chief object.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 4, Sec. 9. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Abnormal (6)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Army (35)  |  Being (1276)  |  Build (211)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Chief (99)  |  Dark (145)  |  Disease (340)  |  Due (143)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fault (58)  |  Feed (31)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Food (213)  |  Good (906)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Liver (22)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  See (1094)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Town (30)  |  Trial (59)  |  Victim (37)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)

Our methods of communication with our fellow men take many forms. We share with other animals the ability to transmit information by such diverse means as the posture of our bodies, by the movements of our eyes, head, arms, and hands, and by our utterances of non-specific sounds. But we go far beyond any other species on earth in that we have evolved sophisticated forms of pictorial representation, elaborate spoken and written languages, ingenious methods of recording music and language on discs, on magnetic tape and in a variety of other kinds of code.
As quoted in epigraph before title page in John Wolfenden, Hermann Bondi, et al., The Languages of Science: A Survey of Techniques of Communication (1963), i.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Code (31)  |  Communication (101)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Form (976)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Information (173)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Movement (162)  |  Music (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Picture (148)  |  Posture (7)  |  Record (161)  |  Recording (13)  |  Representation (55)  |  Share (82)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Spoken (3)  |  Tape (5)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Variety (138)  |  Written (6)

Papyra, throned upon the banks of Nile,
Spread her smooth leaf, and waved her silver style.
The storied pyramid, the laurel’d bust,
The trophy’d arch had crumbled into dust;
The sacred symbol, and the epic song (Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,)
With each unconquer’d chief, or sainted maid,
Sunk undistinguish’d in Oblivion’s shade.
Sad o’er the scatter’d ruins Genius sigh’d,
And infant Arts but learn’d to lisp, and died.
Till to astonish’d realms Papyra taught To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought,
With Wisdom’s voice to print the page sublime,
And mark in adamant the steps of Time.
Science quotes on:  |  Adamant (3)  |  Arch (12)  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Art (680)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Bank (31)  |  Character (259)  |  Chief (99)  |  Dust (68)  |  Epic (12)  |  Genius (301)  |  Infant (26)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Pyramid (9)  |  Realm (87)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Saint (17)  |  Shade (35)  |  Silver (49)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Song (41)  |  Spread (86)  |  Step (234)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Wisdom (235)

Perfect health is above gold; a sound body before riches.
Ecclesiasticus
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Gold (101)  |  Health (210)  |  Money (178)  |  Perfect (223)

Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to human kind is that if science grounded in observation.
(1891). As given as an epigraph in M.J. Vinod and Meena Deshpande, Contemporary Political Theory (2013), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Available (80)  |  Ground (222)  |  Human (1512)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Observation (593)  |  Positivism (3)  |  Theory (1015)

Science progresses by a series of combinations in which chance plays not the least role. Its life is rough and resembles that of minerals which grow by juxtaposition [accretion]. This applies not only to science such as it emerges [results] from the work of a series of scientists, but also to the particular research of each one of them. In vain would analysts dissimulate: (however abstract it may be, analysis is no more our power than that of others); they do not deduce, they combine, they compare: (it must be sought out, sounded out, solicited.) When they arrive at the truth it is by cannoning from one side to another that they come across it.
English translation from manuscript, in Évariste Galois and Peter M. Neumann, 'Dossier 12: On the progress of pure analysis', The Mathematical Writings of Évariste Galois (2011), 263. A transcription of the original French is on page 262. In the following quote from that page, indicated deletions are omitted, and Webmaster uses parentheses to enclose indications of insertions above the original written line. “La science progresse par une série de combinaisons où le hazard ne joue pas le moindre rôle; sa vie est brute et ressemble à celle des minéraux qui croissent par juxtà position. Cela s’applique non seulement à la science telle qu’elle résulte des travaux d’une série de savants, mais aussi aux recherches particulières à chacun d’eux. En vain les analystes voudraient-ils se le dissimuler: (toute immatérielle qu’elle wst analyse n’est pas pas plus en notre pouvoir que des autres); ils ne déduisent pas, ils combinent, ils comparent: (il faut l’epier, la sonder, la solliciter) quand ils arrivent à la vérité, c’est en heurtant de côté et d’autre qu’il y sont tombés.” Webmaster corrected from typo “put” to “but” in the English text.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstract Mathematics (9)  |  Accretion (5)  |  Across (32)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Analyst (8)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Chance (244)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Compare (76)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Do (1905)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Grow (247)  |  In Vain (12)  |  Juxtaposition (3)  |  Least (75)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mineral (66)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Play (116)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Research (753)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Result (700)  |  Role (86)  |  Rough (5)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seek (218)  |  Series (153)  |  Side (236)  |  Solicit (2)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vain (86)  |  Work (1402)

Science tries to answer the question: ‘How?’ How do cells act in the body? How do you design an airplane that will fly faster than sound? How is a molecule of insulin constructed? Religion, by contrast, tries to answer the question: ‘Why?’ Why was man created? Why ought I to tell the truth? Why must there be sorrow or pain or death? Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why.
Science and Imagination, ch. 4, Basic Books (1967).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Analyze (12)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Bad (185)  |  Behave (18)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Body (557)  |  Cell (146)  |  Concern (239)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Create (245)  |  Death (406)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fast (49)  |  Faster (50)  |  Fly (153)  |  Good (906)  |  Insulin (9)  |  Man (2252)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pain (144)  |  People (1031)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Purposeful (2)  |  Quest (39)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Right (473)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

Scientists wrote beautifully through the 19th century and on into the early 20th. But somewhere after that, coincident with the explosive growth of research, the art of writing science suffered a grave setback, and the stultifying convention descended that the best scientific prose should sound like a non-human author addressing a mechanical reader.
In Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age (1990), Preface, xii.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  20th Century (40)  |  Art (680)  |  Author (175)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Best (467)  |  Century (319)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Convention (16)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Early (196)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Grave (52)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Prose (11)  |  Reader (42)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Setback (3)  |  Stultify (5)  |  Suffered (2)  |  Through (846)  |  Writing (192)

Scratch an intellectual, and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk.
In 'The Young and the New York Times Magazine (22 Nov 1970), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristocrat (3)  |  Common (447)  |  Find (1014)  |  Folk (10)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Loathe (4)  |  Scratch (14)  |  Sight (135)  |  Smell (29)  |  Would-Be (2)

Since light travels faster than sound, isn’t that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak?
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Bright (81)  |  Faster (50)  |  Hear (144)  |  Joke (90)  |  Light (635)  |  People (1031)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Travel (125)  |  Why (491)

Since the world is what it is, it is clear that valid reasoning from sound principles cannot lead to error; but a principle may be so nearly true as to deserve theoretical respect, and yet may lead to practical consequences which we feel to be absurd. There is therefore a justification for common sense in philosophy, but only as showing that our theoretical principles cannot be quite correct so long as their consequences are condemned by an appeal to common sense which we feel to be irresistible.
In A History of Western Philosophy, (1945, 1996), 553.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Correct (95)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Error (339)  |  Feel (371)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Justification (52)  |  Lead (391)  |  Long (778)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  True (239)  |  Valid (12)  |  World (1850)

Sound … cannot travel across what we call a vacuum. … Light and our eyes that see it deal with the doings of the whole universe; sound belongs to the world only. I may talk of the universe of light, but I can only talk of the world of sound.
In The World of Sound (1921), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Call (781)  |  Deal (192)  |  Doing (277)  |  Eye (440)  |  Light (635)  |  See (1094)  |  Travel (125)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Sound travels farthest as music; the most telling form of truth is poetry.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Form (976)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Telling (24)  |  Travel (125)  |  Truth (1109)

Strange as it may sound, the power of mathematics rests on its evasion of all unnecessary thought and on its wonderful saving of mental operations.
As quoted, without source, in E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics (1937), Vol. 1, l (Roman numeral 'l').
Science quotes on:  |  Evasion (2)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Power (771)  |  Rest (287)  |  Save (126)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

Suppose the results of a line of study are negative. It might save a lot of otherwise wasted money to know a thing won’t work. But how do you accurately evaluate negative results? ... The power plant in [the recently developed streamline trains] is a Diesel engine of a type which was tried out many [around 25] years ago and found to be a failure. … We didn’t know how to build them. The principle upon which it operated was sound. [Since then much has been] learned in metallurgy [and] the accuracy with which parts can be manufactured
When this type of engine was given another chance it was an immediate success [because now] an accuracy of a quarter of a tenth of a thousandth of an inch [prevents high-pressure oil leaks]. … If we had taken the results of past experience without questioning the reason for the first failure, we would never have had the present light-weight, high-speed Diesel engine which appears to be the spark that will revitalize the railroad business.
'Industrial Prospecting', an address to the Founder Societies of Engineers (20 May 1935). In National Research Council, Reprint and Circular Series of the National Research Council (1933), No. 107, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Build (211)  |  Business (156)  |  Chance (244)  |  Develop (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engine (99)  |  Experience (494)  |  Failure (176)  |  First (1302)  |  High (370)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leak (4)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Lot (151)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Metallurgy (3)  |  Money (178)  |  Negative (66)  |  Never (1089)  |  Oil (67)  |  Past (355)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Principle (530)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Save (126)  |  Spark (32)  |  Speed (66)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Train (118)  |  Type (171)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Suppose then I want to give myself a little training in the art of reasoning; suppose I want to get out of the region of conjecture and probability, free myself from the difficult task of weighing evidence, and putting instances together to arrive at general propositions, and simply desire to know how to deal with my general propositions when I get them, and how to deduce right inferences from them; it is clear that I shall obtain this sort of discipline best in those departments of thought in which the first principles are unquestionably true. For in all our thinking, if we come to erroneous conclusions, we come to them either by accepting false premises to start with—in which case our reasoning, however good, will not save us from error; or by reasoning badly, in which case the data we start from may be perfectly sound, and yet our conclusions may be false. But in the mathematical or pure sciences,—geometry, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, the calculus of variations or of curves,— we know at least that there is not, and cannot be, error in our first principles, and we may therefore fasten our whole attention upon the processes. As mere exercises in logic, therefore, these sciences, based as they all are on primary truths relating to space and number, have always been supposed to furnish the most exact discipline. When Plato wrote over the portal of his school. “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” he did not mean that questions relating to lines and surfaces would be discussed by his disciples. On the contrary, the topics to which he directed their attention were some of the deepest problems,— social, political, moral,—on which the mind could exercise itself. Plato and his followers tried to think out together conclusions respecting the being, the duty, and the destiny of man, and the relation in which he stood to the gods and to the unseen world. What had geometry to do with these things? Simply this: That a man whose mind has not undergone a rigorous training in systematic thinking, and in the art of drawing legitimate inferences from premises, was unfitted to enter on the discussion of these high topics; and that the sort of logical discipline which he needed was most likely to be obtained from geometry—the only mathematical science which in Plato’s time had been formulated and reduced to a system. And we in this country [England] have long acted on the same principle. Our future lawyers, clergy, and statesmen are expected at the University to learn a good deal about curves, and angles, and numbers and proportions; not because these subjects have the smallest relation to the needs of their lives, but because in the very act of learning them they are likely to acquire that habit of steadfast and accurate thinking, which is indispensable to success in all the pursuits of life.
In Lectures on Teaching (1906), 891-92.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Acquire (46)  |  Act (278)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Angle (25)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Art (680)  |  Attention (196)  |  Badly (32)  |  Base (120)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Case (102)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clergy (4)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Country (269)  |  Curve (49)  |  Data (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deep (241)  |  Department (93)  |  Desire (212)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disciple (8)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Duty (71)  |  England (43)  |  Enter (145)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exact (75)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Expect (203)  |  False (105)  |  First (1302)  |  Follower (11)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Free (239)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Habit (174)  |  High (370)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Inference (45)  |  Instance (33)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Least (75)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likely (36)  |  Line (100)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Need (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Plato (80)  |  Political (124)  |  Portal (9)  |  Premise (40)  |  Primary (82)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Region (40)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Respect (212)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Same (166)  |  Save (126)  |  School (227)  |  Simply (53)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Sort (50)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Start (237)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Steadfast (4)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Surface (223)  |  System (545)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Task (152)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Topic (23)  |  Training (92)  |  Trigonometry (7)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Unfitted (3)  |  University (130)  |  Unquestionably (3)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Variation (93)  |  Want (504)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

That many very remarkable change and involuntary motions are sudden produced in the body by various affections of the mind, is undeniably evinced from a number of facts. Thus fear often causes a sudden and uncommon flow of pale urine. Looking much at one troubled with sore eyes, has sometimes affected the spectator with the same disease.—Certain sounds cause a shivering over the whole body.—The noise of a bagpipe has raised in some persons an inclination to make urine.—The sudden appearance of any frightful object, will, in delicate people, cause an uncommon palpitation of the heart.—The sight of an epileptic person agitated with convulsions, has brought on an epilepsy; and yawning is so very catching, as frequently to be propagated through whole companies.
In An Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals (1751), 253-254.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Convulsion (5)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Disease (340)  |  Epilepsy (3)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fear (212)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fright (11)  |  Heart (243)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Involuntary (4)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Noise (40)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Produced (187)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Through (846)  |  Urine (18)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yawn (2)

The Qualities then that are in Bodies rightly considered, are of Three sorts.
First, the Bulk, Figure, Number, Situation, and Motion, or Rest of their solid Parts; those are in them, whether we perceive them or no; and when they are of that size, that we can discover them, we have by these an Idea of the thing, as it is in it self, as is plain in artificial things. These I call primary Qualities.
Secondly, The Power that is in any Body, by Reason of its insensible primary Qualities, to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our Senses, and thereby produce in us the different Ideas of several Colours, Sounds, Smells, Tastes, etc. These are usually called sensible Qualities.
Thirdly, The Power that is in any Body, by Reason of the particular Constitution of its primary Qualities, to make such a change in the Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion of another Body, as to make it operate on our Senses, differently from what it did before. Thus the Sun has a Power to make Wax white, and Fire to make Lead fluid. These are usually called Powers.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 2, Chapter 8, Section 23, 140-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Figure (162)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lead (391)  |  Motion (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Primary (82)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Situation (117)  |  Smell (29)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sun (407)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Usually (176)  |  Wax (13)  |  White (132)

The advance of science has enabled man to communicate at twice the speed of sound while he still acts at half the speed of sense.
Anonymous
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1968, 1995), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Advance (298)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Enabled (3)  |  Half (63)  |  Man (2252)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speed (66)  |  Still (614)

The bells which toll for mankind are—most of them, anyway—like the bells of Alpine cattle; they are attached to our own necks, and it must be our fault if they do not make a cheerful and harmonious sound.
From sixth and last lecture in series of Reith Lectures titled 'The Future of Man' on BBC Home Service radio (1959). Text printed in the magazine, The Listener. Also collected in book form as The Future of Man. This was the concluding sentence of the last lecture.
Science quotes on:  |  Alpine (2)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Bell (35)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fault (58)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neck (15)

The cases of action at a distance are becoming, in a physical point of view, daily more and more important. Sound, light, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, present them as a series.
The nature of sound and its dependence on a medium we think we understand, pretty well. The nature of light as dependent on a medium is now very largely accepted. The presence of a medium in the phenomena of electricity and magnetism becomes more and more probable daily. We employ ourselves, and I think rightly, in endeavouring to elucidate the physical exercise of these forces, or their sets of antecedents and consequents, and surely no one can find fault with the labours which eminent men have entered upon in respect of light, or into which they may enter as regards electricity and magnetism. Then what is there about gravitation that should exclude it from consideration also? Newton did not shut out the physical view, but had evidently thought deeply of it; and if he thought of it, why should not we, in these advanced days, do so too?
Letter to E. Jones, 9 Jun 1857. In Michael Faraday, Bence Jones (ed.), The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 2, 387.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Action (342)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Daily (91)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Employ (115)  |  Enter (145)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fault (58)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Labor (200)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Presence (63)  |  Present (630)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respect (212)  |  Series (153)  |  Set (400)  |  Shut (41)  |  Surely (101)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)  |  View (496)  |  Why (491)

The conception that antibodies, which should protect against disease, are also responsible for the disease, sounds at first absurd. This has as its basis the fact that we are accustomed to see in disease only the harm done to the organism and to see in the antibodies solely antitoxic [protective] substances. One forgets too easily that the disease represents only a stage in the development of immunity, and that the organism often attains the advantage of immunity only by means of disease. ... Serum sickness represents, so to speak, an unnatural (artificial) form of disease.
C. von Pirquet and B. Schick, Die Serumkrankheit (1906), trans B. Schick, Serum Sickness (1951), 119-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Against (332)  |  Antibody (6)  |  Antitoxin (2)  |  Attain (126)  |  Basis (180)  |  Conception (160)  |  Development (441)  |  Disease (340)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Forget (125)  |  Form (976)  |  Harm (43)  |  Immunity (8)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Organism (231)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Represent (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  See (1094)  |  Serum (11)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stage (152)  |  Substance (253)  |  Unnatural (15)

The dexterous management of terms and being able to fend and prove with them, I know has and does pass in the world for a great part of learning; but it is learning distinct from knowledge, for knowledge consists only in perceiving the habitudes and relations of ideas one to another, which is done without words; the intervention of sounds helps nothing to it. And hence we see that there is least use of distinction where there is most knowledge: I mean in mathematics, where men have determined ideas with known names to them; and so, there being no room for equivocations, there is no need of distinctions.
In Conduct of the Understanding, Sect. 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Consist (223)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habit (174)  |  Help (116)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Least (75)  |  Management (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Need (320)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Part (235)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Prove (261)  |  Relation (166)  |  Room (42)  |  See (1094)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

The doctor listens in with a stethoscope and hears sounds of a warpath Indian drum.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Doctor (191)  |  Drum (8)  |  Hear (144)  |  Indian (32)  |  Listen (81)

The dolphin ... [in air] ... has a voice (and can therefore utter vocal or vowel sounds), for it is furnished with a lung and a windpipe; but its tongue is not loose, nor has it lips, so as to give utterance to an articulate sound (or a sound of vowel and consonant in combination.)
Other translations vary. Sometimes seen quoted more briefly as: The voice of the dolphin in air is like that of the human in that they can pronounce vowels and combinations of vowels, but have difficulties with the consonants.
Aristotle
Historia Animalium (c.350 BC) as translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, The History of Animals (1910, reprint, 2004), Book IV, 110; also online etext. Brief form as quoted in Communication Between Man and Dolphin (1987), 11. By John Cunningham Lilly
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Combination (150)  |  Consonant (3)  |  Dolphin (9)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Human (1512)  |  Lung (37)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Translation (21)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Voice (54)

The Earth Speaks, clearly, distinctly, and, in many of the realms of Nature, loudly, to William Jennings Bryan, but he fails to hear a single sound. The earth speaks from the remotest periods in its wonderful life history in the Archaeozoic Age, when it reveals only a few tissues of its primitive plants. Fifty million years ago it begins to speak as “the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life.” In successive eons of time the various kinds of animals leave their remains in the rocks which compose the deeper layers of the earth, and when the rocks are laid bare by wind, frost, and storm we find wondrous lines of ascent invariably following the principles of creative evolution, whereby the simpler and more lowly forms always precede the higher and more specialized forms.
The earth speaks not of a succession of distinct creations but of a continuous ascent, in which, as the millions of years roll by, increasing perfection of structure and beauty of form are found; out of the water-breathing fish arises the air-breathing amphibian; out of the land-living amphibian arises the land-living, air-breathing reptile, these two kinds of creeping things resembling each other closely. The earth speaks loudly and clearly of the ascent of the bird from one kind of reptile and of the mammal from another kind of reptile.
This is not perhaps the way Bryan would have made the animals, but this is the way God made them!
The Earth Speaks to Bryan (1925), 5-6. Osborn wrote this book in response to the Scopes Monkey Trial, where William Jennings Bryan spoke against the theory of evolution. They had previously been engaged in the controversy about the theory for several years. The title refers to a Biblical verse from the Book of Job (12:8), “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.”
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Air (366)  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bird (163)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathing (23)  |  William Jennings Bryan (20)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eon (12)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fish (130)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Frost (15)  |  God (776)  |  Hear (144)  |  History (716)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Kind (564)  |  Land (131)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Period (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Realm (87)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remains (9)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roll (41)  |  Single (365)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Storm (56)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Year (963)

The earth’s becoming at a particular period the residence of human beings, was an era in the moral, not in the physical world, that our study and contemplation of the earth, and the laws which govern its animate productions, ought no more to be considered in the light of a disturbance or deviation from the system, than the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter should be regarded as a physical event in the history of those heavenly bodies, however influential they may have become from that time in advancing the progress of sound philosophy among men.
In Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the of the Earth’s Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation(1830), Vol. 1, 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Event (222)  |  Govern (66)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Period (200)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Production (190)  |  Progress (492)  |  Regard (312)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Study (701)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

The farthest Thunder that I heard
Was nearer than the Sky
And rumbles still, though torrid Noons
Have lain their missiles by-
The Lightning that preceded it
Struck no one but myself-
But I would not exchange the Bolt
For all the rest of Life-
Indebtedness to Oxygen
The Happy may repay,
But not the obligation
To Electricity-
It founds the Homes and decks the Days
And every clamor bright
Is but the gleam concomitant
Of that waylaying Light-
The Thought is quiet as a Flake-
A Crash without a Sound,
How Life’s reverberation
Is Explanation found-—
Science quotes on:  |  Bolt (11)  |  Bright (81)  |  Crash (9)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Happy (108)  |  Home (184)  |  Indebtedness (4)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Missile (7)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Noon (14)  |  Obligation (26)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Poem (104)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Rest (287)  |  Reverberation (3)  |  Sky (174)  |  Still (614)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thunder (21)

The first [quality] to be named must always be the power of attention, of giving one's whole mind to the patient without the interposition of anything of oneself. It sounds simple but only the very greatest doctors ever fully attain it. … The second thing to be striven for is intuition. This sounds an impossibility, for who can control that small quiet monitor? But intuition is only interference from experience stored and not actively recalled. … The last aptitude I shall mention that must be attained by the good physician is that of handling the sick man's mind.
In 'Art and Science in Medicine', The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Attention (196)  |  Control (182)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Handling (7)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Interference (22)  |  Interposition (2)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monitor (10)  |  Must (1525)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Power (771)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Recall (11)  |  Sick (83)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  Store (49)  |  Strive (53)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whole (756)

The first acquaintance which most people have with mathematics is through arithmetic. That two and two make four is usually taken as the type of a simple mathematical proposition which everyone will have heard of. … The first noticeable fact about arithmetic is that it applies to everything, to tastes and to sounds, to apples and to angels, to the ideas of the mind and to the bones of the body.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Angel (47)  |  Apple (46)  |  Application (257)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Simple (426)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.
In a letter to a minister in Brooklyn, N.Y. (20 Nov 1950), third paragraph, as quoted in Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann (eds.), Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979, 1981), 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Authority (99)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Legitimacy (5)  |  Morality (55)  |  Myth (58)

The glories and the beauties of form, color, and sound unite in the Grand Canyon—forms unrivaled even by the mountains, colors that vie with sunsets, and sounds that span the diapason from tempest to tinkling raindrop, from cataract to bubbling fountain.
In Canyons of the Colorado (1895), 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Cataract (4)  |  Color (155)  |  Form (976)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glory (66)  |  Grand Canyon (11)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Raindrop (4)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Tempest (7)  |  Unite (43)

The laws of light and of heat translate each other;—so do the laws of sound and colour; and so galvanism, electricity and magnetism are varied forms of this selfsame energy.
In 'Letters and Social Aims: Poetry and Imagination', Prose works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1880), Vol. 3, 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Color (155)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Energy (373)  |  Form (976)  |  Galvanism (9)  |  Heat (180)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Other (2233)  |  Translate (21)  |  Translation (21)  |  Variation (93)

The leading idea which is present in all our [geological] researches, and which accompanies every fresh observation, the sound of which to the ear of the student of Nature seems echoed from every part of her works, is—Time!—Time!—Time!
The Geology and Extinct Volcanoes of Central France (2nd ed., 1858), 208-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Ear (69)  |  Echo (12)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Geology (240)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lead (391)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Present (630)  |  Research (753)  |  Student (317)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

The mass gross absence of sound in space is more than just silence.
As quoted in Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin, First on the Moon: The Astronauts’ Own Story (1970), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Gross (7)  |  Mass (160)  |  More (2558)  |  Silence (62)  |  Space (523)

The moment after, I began to respire 20 quarts of unmingled nitrous oxide. A thrilling, extending from the chest to the extremities, was almost immediately produced. I felt a sense of tangible extension highly pleasurable in every limb; my visible impressions were dazzling, and apparently magnified, I heard distinctly every sound in the room and was perfectly aware of my situation. By degrees, as the pleasurable sensations increased, I last all connection with external things; trains of vivid visible images rapidly passed through my mind, and were connected with words in such a manner, as to produce perceptions perfectly novel. I existed in a world of newly connected and newly modified ideas. I theorised—I imagined that I made discoveries. When I was awakened from this semi-delirious trance by Dr. Kinglake, who took the bag from my mouth, indignation and pride were the first feelings produced by the sight of the persons about me. My emotions were enthusiastic and sublime; and for a minute I walked round the room, perfectly regardless of what was said to me. As I recovered my former state of mind, I felt an inclination to communicate the discoveries I had made during the experiment. I endeavoured to recall the ideas, they were feeble and indistinct; one collection of terms, however, presented itself: and with the most intense belief and prophetic manner, I exclaimed to Dr Kinglake, 'Nothing exists but thoughts!—the universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures and pains!'
Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1800), in J. Davy (ed.), The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy (1839-40), Vol 3, 289-90.
Science quotes on:  |  Anaesthetic (2)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biography (254)  |  Collection (68)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Degree (277)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extension (60)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  First (1302)  |  Former (138)  |  Idea (881)  |  Image (97)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Last (425)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Novel (35)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perception (97)  |  Person (366)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Present (630)  |  Pride (84)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sight (135)  |  Situation (117)  |  State (505)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Universe (900)  |  Visible (87)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Walk (138)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

The more experiences and experiments accumulate in the exploration of nature, the more precarious the theories become. But it is not always good to discard them immediately on this account. For every hypothesis which once was sound was useful for thinking of previous phenomena in the proper interrelations and for keeping them in context. We ought to set down contradictory experiences separately, until enough have accumulated to make building a new structure worthwhile.
Lichtenberg: Aphorisms & Letters (1969), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Become (821)  |  Building (158)  |  Context (31)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Discard (32)  |  Down (455)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Good (906)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Interrelation (8)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Precarious (6)  |  Proper (150)  |  Set (400)  |  Structure (365)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Worthwhile (18)

The most persistent sound which reverberates through men’s history is the beating of war drums.
In Prologue to Janus: A Summing Up (1978), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Beating (4)  |  Drum (8)  |  History (716)  |  Most (1728)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Through (846)  |  War (233)

The new mathematics is a sort of supplement to language, affording a means of thought about form and quantity and a means of expression, more exact, compact, and ready than ordinary language. The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential facts of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of the great complex world-wide States that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write.
Mankind in the Making (1903), 204. This is seen in a shorter form, somewhat misquoted in a paraphrase as: “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.” However, note that in fact, Wells refers only to “mathematical analysis” such as “averages and maxima and minima” — and did not specify (more complex) “statistics” at all! For citation of the paraphrase, see Samuel Wilks Quotations on this site.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Average (89)  |  Body (557)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Compact (13)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complex (202)  |  Computation (28)  |  Deal (192)  |  Endless (60)  |  Essential (210)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  Initiation (8)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Minimum (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  New (1273)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Problem (731)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Read (308)  |  Remote (86)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  State (505)  |  Supplement (7)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinkable (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Training (92)  |  Understood (155)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

The popularisation of scientific doctrines is producing as great an alteration in the mental state of society as the material applications of science are effecting in its outward life. Such indeed is the respect paid to science, that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recals [sic] some well-known scientific phrase.
'Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics' (1871). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 242.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Application (257)  |  Become (821)  |  Current (122)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Express (192)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Respect (212)  |  Science And Society (25)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Society (350)  |  State (505)

The position of the anthropologist of to-day resembles in some sort the position of classical scholars at the revival of learning. To these men the rediscovery of ancient literature came like a revelation, disclosing to their wondering eyes a splendid vision of the antique world, such as the cloistered of the Middle Ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow of the minster and within the sound of its solemn bells. To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims at bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to follow the long march, the slow and toilsome ascent, of humanity from savagery to civilization. And as the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely fresh food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so in the mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from many sides—from buried cities of remotest antiquity as well as from the rudest savages of the desert and the jungle—we of to-day must recognise a new province of knowledge which will task the energies of generations of students to master.
'Author’s Introduction' (1900). In Dr Theodor H. Gaster (ed.), The New Golden Bough (1959), xxv-xxvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bell (35)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Classical (49)  |  Desert (59)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fad (10)  |  Faith (209)  |  Field (378)  |  Follow (389)  |  Food (213)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Generation (256)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learning (291)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Mankind (356)  |  March (48)  |  Mass (160)  |  Master (182)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Practice (212)  |  Province (37)  |  Race (278)  |  Rediscovery (2)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Vision (127)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The right that must become paramount is not the right to procreate, but rather the right of every child to be born with a sound physical and mental constitution, based on a sound genotype. No parents will in that future time have the right to burden society with a malformed or mentally incompetent child. Just as every child must have the right to full educational opportunity and a sound nutrition, so every child has the inalienable right to a sound heritage.
Expressing concern that in a coming overpopulated world, “sacred rights of man must alter.” Presidential Address (28 Dec 1970) to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 'Science: Endless Horizons or Golden Age?', Science (8 Jan 1971), 171, No. 3866, 24. As quoted in obituary by Douglas Martin, New York Times (20 Jan 2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Burden (30)  |  Child (333)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Future (467)  |  Genotype (8)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Incompetent (4)  |  Mental (179)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Paramount (11)  |  Parent (80)  |  Physical (518)  |  Procreate (4)  |  Right (473)  |  Society (350)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)

The silence of a shut park does not sound like the country silence; it is tense and confined.
The Death of the Heart (1938).
Science quotes on:  |  Confined (3)  |  Country (269)  |  Park (10)  |  Shut (41)  |  Silence (62)

The so-called Marxian dialectic is simply an effort by third-rate men to give an air of profundity to balderdash. Christianity has gone the same way. There are some sound ideas in it, but its advocates always add a lot of preposterous nonsense. The result is theology.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Advocate (20)  |  Air (366)  |  Call (781)  |  Christianity (11)  |  Dialectic (6)  |  Effort (243)  |  Give (208)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lot (151)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Preposterous (8)  |  Profundity (6)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Simply (53)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Theology (54)  |  Third-Rate (2)  |  Way (1214)

The sound of progress is perhaps the sound of plummeting hypotheses.
Locational Analysis in Human Geography (1965), 277.
Science quotes on:  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Progress (492)

The Spacious Firmament on high,
With all the blue Etherial Sky,
And spangled Heav’ns, a Shining Frame, Their great Original proclaim:
Th’unwearied Sun, from day to day
Does his Creator’s Pow’r display,
And publishes to every Land
The Work of an Almighty Hand.
Soon as the Evening Shades prevail,
The Moon takes up the wondrous Tale,
And nightly to the listning Earth Repeats the Story of her Birth:
Whilst all the Stars that round her burn,
And all the Planets, in their turn,
Confirm the Tidings as they rowl,
And spread the Truth from Pole to Pole.
What though, in solemn Silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial Ball?
What tho’ nor real Voice nor Sound
Amid their radiant Orbs be found?
In Reason’s Ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious Voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
“The Hand that made us is Divine”.
The Spectator, no. 465, Saturday 23 August 1712. In D. F. Bond (ed.) The Spectator (1965), Vol. 4, 144-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Almighty (23)  |  Ball (64)  |  Birth (154)  |  Burn (99)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Creator (97)  |  Dark (145)  |  Display (59)  |  Divine (112)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Moon (252)  |  Move (223)  |  Orb (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pole (49)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Radiant (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shining (35)  |  Silence (62)  |  Singing (19)  |  Sky (174)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Story (122)  |  Sun (407)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Work (1402)

The universe seems to me infinitely strange and foreign. At such a moment I gaze upon it with a mixture of anguish and euphoria; separate from the universe, as though placed at a certain distance outside it; I look and I see pictures, creatures that move in a kind of timeless time and spaceless space, emitting sounds that are a kind of language I no longer understand or ever register.
‘Interviews: Brief Notes for Radio’, Notes and Counter-Notes: Writings on the Theatre (1964), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Anguish (2)  |  Certain (557)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distance (171)  |  Emit (15)  |  Euphoria (2)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Look (584)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Moment (260)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Outside (141)  |  Picture (148)  |  Place (192)  |  Register (22)  |  See (1094)  |  Separate (151)  |  Space (523)  |  Spaceless (2)  |  Strange (160)  |  Time (1911)  |  Timeless (8)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)

The weather is warm
The sun is out
There are people all around
The waves come flowing
And hits the shore
But makes so little sound
The wind is blowing
Oh so softly
The sand between my feet
The dolphins jump
The people watch
They even take a seat
I fly around
Watching from above
Today is like everyday
That is something I love
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Dolphin (9)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foot (65)  |  Hit (20)  |  Jump (31)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  People (1031)  |  Sand (63)  |  Seat (7)  |  Shore (25)  |  Softly (6)  |  Something (718)  |  Sun (407)  |  Today (321)  |  Warm (74)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wave (112)  |  Weather (49)  |  Wind (141)

The word “definition” has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings.
In 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays (1953, 1961), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Definition (238)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Owing (39)  |  Reassure (7)  |  Word (650)  |  Writing (192)  |  Writings (6)

The wound is granulating well, the matter formed is diminishing in quantity and is laudable. But the wound is still deep and must be dressed from the bottom to ensure sound healing. … In view of the fact that sinister stories continue to be manufactured and to be printed, it may again be stated, as emphatically as possible, that during the operation no trace of malignant disease was observed, … His Majesty will leave Buckingham Palace for change of air shortly, and the date of the Coronation will be announced almost immediately.
Anonymous
In 'The King’s Progress Towards Recovery', British Medical Journal (1902), 144. The appendectomy caused the coronation of King Edward VII to be postponed.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Change (639)  |  Continue (179)  |  Deep (241)  |  Disease (340)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Healing (28)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Possible (560)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Royalty (3)  |  Still (614)  |  Trace (109)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wound (26)

Then I had shown, in the same place, what the structure of the nerves and muscles of the human body would have to be in order for the animal spirits in the body to have the power to move its members, as one sees when heads, soon after they have been cut off, still move and bite the ground even though they are no longer alive; what changes must be made in the brain to cause waking, sleep and dreams; how light, sounds, odours, tastes, warmth and all the other qualities of external objects can impress different ideas on it through the senses; how hunger, thirst, and the other internal passions can also send their ideas there; what part of the brain should be taken as “the common sense”, where these ideas are received; what should be taken as the memory, which stores the ideas, and as the imagination, which can vary them in different ways and compose new ones and, by the same means, distribute the animal spirits to the muscles, cause the limbs of the body to move in as many different ways as our own bodies can move without the will directing them, depending on the objects that are present to the senses and the internal passions in the body. This will not seem strange to those who know how many different automata or moving machines can be devised by human ingenuity, by using only very few pieces in comparison with the larger number of bones, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins and all the other parts in the body of every animal. They will think of this body like a machine which, having been made by the hand of God, is incomparably better structured than any machine that could be invented by human beings, and contains many more admirable movements.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 5, 39-40.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Bite (18)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Cut (116)  |  Different (595)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Dream (222)  |  God (776)  |  Ground (222)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impress (66)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Internal (69)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nerve (82)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Still (614)  |  Store (49)  |  Strange (160)  |  Structure (365)  |  Taste (93)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Vein (27)  |  Waking (17)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There are science teachers who actually claim that they teach “a healthy skepticism.” They do not. They teach a profound gullibility, and their dupes, trained not to think for themselves, will swallow any egregious rot, provided it is dressed up with long words and an affectation of objectivity to make it sound scientific.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Affectation (4)  |  Claim (154)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dupe (5)  |  Gullibility (3)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Long (778)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Profound (105)  |  Rot (9)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skepticism (31)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Train (118)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think.
Quoted by J.F. Kaiser, introducing Richard Hamming's address, 'You and Your Research', at the Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  Hear (144)  |  People (1031)  |  See (1094)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wavelength (10)

There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome.
Translation of Novum Organum, CXI. In Francis Bacon, James Spedding, The Works of Francis Bacon (1864), Vol. 8, 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Direct (228)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hope (321)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Omit (12)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Small (489)  |  Solid (119)  |  Study (701)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)

There is no such thing as a good nuclear weapons system. There is no way to achieve, in the sound sense, national security through nuclear weapons.
Quoted from interview (1983) in 'Herbert York dies at 87', L.A. Times (21 May 2009)
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Good (906)  |  National Security (3)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Weapon (17)  |  Security (51)  |  Sense (785)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

These Disciplines [mathematics] serve to inure and corroborate the Mind to a constant Diligence in Study; to undergo the Trouble of an attentive Meditation, and cheerfully contend with such Difficulties as lie in the Way. They wholly deliver us from a credulous Simplicity, most strongly fortify us against the Vanity of Scepticism, effectually restrain from a rash Presumption, most easily incline us to a due Assent, perfectly subject us to the Government of right Reason, and inspire us with Resolution to wrestle against the unjust Tyranny of false Prejudices. If the Fancy be unstable and fluctuating, it is to be poized by this Ballast, and steadied by this Anchor, if the Wit be blunt it is sharpened upon this Whetstone; if luxuriant it is pared by this Knife; if headstrong it is restrained by this Bridle; and if dull it is rouzed by this Spur. The Steps are guided by no Lamp more clearly through the dark Mazes of Nature, by no Thread more surely through the intricate Labyrinths of Philosophy, nor lastly is the Bottom of Truth sounded more happily by any other Line. I will not mention how plentiful a Stock of Knowledge the Mind is furnished from these, with what wholesome Food it is nourished, and what sincere Pleasure it enjoys. But if I speak farther, I shall neither be the only Person, nor the first, who affirms it; that while the Mind is abstracted and elevated from sensible Matter, distinctly views pure Forms, conceives the Beauty of Ideas, and investigates the Harmony of Proportions; the Manners themselves are sensibly corrected and improved, the Affections composed and rectified, the Fancy calmed and settled, and the Understanding raised and excited to more divine Contemplations. All which I might defend by Authority, and confirm by the Suffrages of the greatest Philosophers.
Prefatory Oration in Mathematical Lectures (1734), xxxi.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Affection (44)  |  Against (332)  |  Anchor (10)  |  Assent (12)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Authority (99)  |  Ballast (2)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Calm (32)  |  Chemical Biodynamics (2)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Credulous (9)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Divine (112)  |  Due (143)  |  Dull (58)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortify (4)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Government (116)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Knife (24)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labyrinth (12)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maze (11)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rash (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rectified (4)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Right (473)  |  Scepticism (17)  |  Settled (34)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spur (4)  |  Step (234)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suffrage (4)  |  Surely (101)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thread (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Tyranny (15)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Vanity (20)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whetstone (2)  |  Wholesome (12)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wit (61)

This weapon [the atomic bomb] has added an additional responsibility—or, better, an additional incentive—to find a sound basis for lasting peace. It provides an overwhelming inducement for the avoidance of war. It emphasizes the crisis we face in international matters and strengthens the conviction that adequate safeguards for peace must be found.
Opening address (7 Nov 1945) of Town Hall’s annual lecture series, as quoted in 'Gen. Groves Warns on Atom ‘Suicide’', New York Times (8 Nov 1945), 4. (Just three months before he spoke, two atom bombs dropped on Japan in Aug 1945 effectively ended WW II.)
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Avoidance (11)  |  Basis (180)  |  Better (493)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Face (214)  |  Find (1014)  |  Incentive (10)  |  Inducement (3)  |  Intentional (4)  |  International (40)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Peace (116)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Safeguard (8)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)

Through seven figures come sensations for a man; there is hearing for sounds, sight for the visible, nostril for smell, tongue for pleasant or unpleasant tastes, mouth for speech, body for touch, passages outwards and inwards for hot or cold breath. Through these come knowledge or lack of it.
Regimen, in Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1931), Vol. 4, 261.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Breath (61)  |  Cold (115)  |  Figure (162)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Hot (63)  |  Inward (6)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Nostril (4)  |  Passage (52)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sight (135)  |  Smell (29)  |  Speech (66)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Touch (146)  |  Unpleasant (15)  |  Visible (87)

Time is that which is measured by a clock. This is a sound way of looking at things. A quantity like time, or any other physical measurement, does not exist in a completely abstract way. We find no sense in talking about something unless we specify how we measure it. It is the definition by the method of measuring a quantity that is the one sure way of avoiding talking nonsense about this kind of thing.
From Relativity and Common Sense: A New Approach to Einstein (1980), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Avoiding (2)  |  Clock (51)  |  Completely (137)  |  Definition (238)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Kind (564)  |  Looking (191)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measured (2)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Method (531)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Specify (6)  |  Talking (76)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

To a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena.
In 'Introduction', Nature: Addresses, and Lectures (1849), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Explain (334)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Practical (225)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)

Today we are on the eve of launching a new industry, based on imagination, on scientific research and accomplishment. … Now we add radio sight to sound. It is with a feeling of humbleness that I come to this moment of announcing the birth in this country of a new art so important in its implications that it is bound to affect all society. It is an art which shines like a torch of hope in the troubled world. It is a creative force which we must learn to utilize for the benefit of all mankind. This miracle of engineering skill which one day will bring the world to the home also brings a new American industry to serve man’s material welfare … [Television] will become an important factor in American economic life.
Address at dedication of RCA Exhibit Building, New York World Fair before unveiling the RCA television exhibit (20 Apr 1939). In RCA Review: A Technical Journal (1938), Vols 3-4, 4. As quoted in Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, 'Father of Broadcasting: David Sarnoff (Time 100)', Time (7 Dec 1998), 152, No. 23, 88; and in Eugene Lyons, David Sarnoff: A Biography (1966), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Art (680)  |  Become (821)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Birth (154)  |  Bound (120)  |  Country (269)  |  Creative (144)  |  Economic (84)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Force (497)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Industry (159)  |  Invention (400)  |  Learn (672)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Radio (60)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sight (135)  |  Skill (116)  |  Society (350)  |  Television (33)  |  Today (321)  |  Torch (13)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

True and constant vigour of body is the effect of health, which is much better preserved with watery, herbaceous, frugal, and tender food, than with vinous, abundant, hard, and gross flesh (che col cameo vinoso ed unto abundante e duro). And in a sound body, a clear intelligence, and desire to suppress the mischievous inclinations (voglie dannose), and to conquer the irrational passions, produces true worth.
From Dell Vitto Pitagorico (1743), (The Pythagorean Diet: for the Use of the Medical Faculty), as translated quotes in Howard Williams, The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-Eating (1883), 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Constant (148)  |  Desire (212)  |  Effect (414)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Food (213)  |  Hard (246)  |  Health (210)  |  Herbaceous (2)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Irrational (16)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Passion (121)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Suppress (6)  |  Tender (6)  |  Vegetarian (13)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Water (503)  |  Worth (172)

True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights–and I am not against supplying such lures if they draw children into even a transient concern with science. But every classroom has one [Oliver] Sacks, one [Eric] Korn, or one [Jonathan] Miller, usually a lonely child with a passionate curiosity about nature, and a zeal that overcomes pressures for conformity. Do not the one in fifty deserve their institutions as well–magic places, like cabinet museums, that can spark the rare flames of genius?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Age (509)  |  Anti-Intellectual (2)  |  Bite (18)  |  Cabinet (5)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Classroom (11)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conformity (15)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Flame (44)  |  Flash (49)  |  Genius (301)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Light (635)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Lure (9)  |  Magic (92)  |  Majority (68)  |  Miller (2)  |  Museum (40)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Passionate (22)  |  Place (192)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Rare (94)  |  Sack (2)  |  Spark (32)  |  Supply (100)  |  Transient (13)  |  True (239)  |  Usually (176)  |  Zeal (12)

Trying to determine the structure of a protein by UV spectroscopy was like trying to determine the structure of a piano by listening to the sound it made while being dropped down a flight of stairs.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Determine (152)  |  Down (455)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Flight (101)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listening (26)  |  Piano (12)  |  Protein (56)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Stairs (2)  |  Structure (365)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)

Voice is a flowing breath of air, perceptible to the hearing by contact. It moves in an endless number of circular rounds, like the innumerably increasing circular waves which appear when a stone is thrown into smooth water, and which keep on spreading indefinitely from the centre.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 5, Chap 1, Sec. 6. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Breath (61)  |  Centre (31)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circular (19)  |  Contact (66)  |  Endless (60)  |  Flow (89)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Move (223)  |  Number (710)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stone (168)  |  Throw (45)  |  Voice (54)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)

Watch the stars, and from them learn. To the Master’s honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton’s ground.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Forever (111)  |  Ground (222)  |  Honor (57)  |  Learn (672)  |  Master (182)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Trace (109)  |  Track (42)  |  Turn (454)  |  Watch (118)

Watson, if I can get a mechanism which will make a current of electricity vary in its intensity, as the air varies in density when a sound is passing through it, I can telegraph any sound, even the sound of speech.
As quoted by Thomas A. Watson, in Exploring Life: The Autobiography of Thomas A. Watson (1926), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Current (122)  |  Density (25)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Passing (76)  |  Speech (66)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

We astronauts, we don’t really refer to it as blasting off because that sounds pretty uncontrollable. During the launch we call it launching.
Replying to a Whetstone High School students’ question during a school forum held using a downlink with the Discovery Space Shuttle mission (31 Oct 1998). On NASA web page 'STS-95 Educational Downlink'. Mubarak Abdurraqib, David Tynan, Keith Smith asked, “Commander Brown, when blasting off, do you actually feel the inertia?”
Science quotes on:  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Call (781)  |  Launch (21)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Uncontrollable (5)

We had various kinds of tape-recorded concerts and popular music. But by the end of the flight what we listened to most was Russian folk songs. We also had recordings of nature sounds: thunder, rain, the singing of birds. We switched them on most frequently of all, and we never grew tired of them. It was as if they returned us to Earth.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Concert (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Flight (101)  |  Folk (10)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Grow (247)  |  Kind (564)  |  Listen (81)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Popular (34)  |  Rain (70)  |  Record (161)  |  Recording (13)  |  Return (133)  |  Russian (3)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Song (41)  |  Switch (10)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Tired (13)  |  Various (205)

We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.
In Common Sense in the Exact Sciences (1885), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Bad (185)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Depend (238)  |  Good (906)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Sense (785)

We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent or self-satisfied; they are, if sound, the spearhead of progress. If they are fundamentally wrong, free discussion will in time put an end to them.
I Remember (1940), 405.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Complacent (7)  |  Discussion (78)  |  End (603)  |  Extremist (2)  |  Free (239)  |  Must (1525)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Progress (492)  |  Role (86)  |  Self (268)  |  Society (350)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effect s of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Appear (122)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bear (162)  |  Body (557)  |  Check (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Expect (203)  |  Freely (13)  |  Hope (321)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Kind (564)  |  Least (75)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Marry (11)  |  Member (42)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Namely (11)  |  Propagate (5)  |  Refrain (9)  |  Society (350)  |  Steady (45)  |  Survive (87)  |  Undoubtedly (3)  |  Weak (73)

We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'.
In The Selfish Gene (1976).
Science quotes on:  |  Abbreviate (2)  |  Being (1276)  |  Classicist (2)  |  Consolation (9)  |  Convey (17)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Forgive (12)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gene (105)  |  Greek (109)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Meme (2)  |  Memory (144)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Noun (6)  |  Replicator (3)  |  Rhyme (6)  |  Root (121)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Unit (36)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

We sound the future, and learn that after a period, long compared with the divisions of time open to our investigation, the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish.
The Foundations of Belief: Being Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology (1895), 30-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Decay (59)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Disturbed (15)  |  Division (67)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Future (467)  |  Inert (14)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Learn (672)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Open (277)  |  Period (200)  |  Perish (56)  |  Pit (20)  |  Race (278)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)

What we do see through geological time is the emergence of more complex worlds. ... [W]hen within the animal we see the emergence of larger and more complex brains, sophisticated vocalizations, echolocation, electrical perception, advanced social systems including eusociality, viviparity, warm-bloodedness, and agriculture—all of which are convergent—then to me that sounds like progress.
Life's Solution, 307. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 184.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Animal (651)  |  Brain (281)  |  Complex (202)  |  Convergent (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Geological (11)  |  Include (93)  |  Large (398)  |  More (2558)  |  Perception (97)  |  Progress (492)  |  See (1094)  |  Social (261)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Warm (74)  |  World (1850)

When external objects are impressed on the sensory nerves, they excite vibrations in the aether residing in the pores of these nerves... Thus it seems that light affects both the optic nerve and the aether and ... the affections of the aether are communicated to the optic nerve, and vice versa. And the same may be observed of frictions of the skin, taste, smells and sounds... Vibrations in the aether will agitate the small particles of the medullary substance of the sensory nerves with synchronous vibrations... up to the brain... These vibrations are motions backwards and forwards of small particles, of the same kind with the oscillations of pendulums, and the tremblings of the particles of the sounding bodies (but) exceedingly short and small, so as not to have the least efficacy to disturb or move the whole bodies of the nerves... That the nerves themselves should vibrate like musical strings is highly absurd.
Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations (1749), part 1, 11-22.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Aether (13)  |  Affection (44)  |  Backwards (18)  |  Both (496)  |  Brain (281)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Forward (104)  |  Friction (14)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Object (438)  |  Observed (149)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Particle (200)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Short (200)  |  Skin (48)  |  Small (489)  |  Smell (29)  |  Substance (253)  |  Taste (93)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Vibrate (7)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Vice (42)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

When one begins to speak of something it sounds plausible, but when we reflect on it we find it false. The initial impression a thing makes on my mind is very important. Taking an overall view of a thing the mind sees every side of it obscurely, which is often of more value than a clear idea of only one side of it.
Aphorism 47 in Notebook D (1773-1775), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 50-51.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Find (1014)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impression (118)  |  Initial (17)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Overall (10)  |  Plausibility (7)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Reflection (93)  |  See (1094)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)

When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball and that by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plant is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere—on sea, or land, or high in the air—humanity will be like an ant heap stirred up with a stick: See the excitement coming!
In 'The Transmission of Electric Energy Without Wires', Electrical World and Engineer (5 Mar 1904), 43, No. 10, 431.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Accidentally (2)  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Air (366)  |  Ant (34)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Baffle (6)  |  Ball (64)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Current (122)  |  Distance (171)  |  Electric (76)  |  Energy (373)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faithful (13)  |  First (1302)  |  Globe (51)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heap (15)  |  Heat (180)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Incalculable (4)  |  Inflection (4)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Interference (22)  |  Land (131)  |  Light (635)  |  Message (53)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Motive (62)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Power (771)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Render (96)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Sea (326)  |  Secret (216)  |  Small (489)  |  Stick (27)  |  Stir (23)  |  Supply (100)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmit (12)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Virtually (6)  |  Voice (54)  |  Waterfall (5)

When the president said, “We’re going to send a man to the moon and return him safely,” the safe part sounded pretty good. But they were using hydrogen, and the only thing I knew about hydrogen was that they used it with the Hindenburg, and that didn’t work out too good.
Interview (30 Sep 2004) with Morley Safer at luncheon after official reopening of Rocket Park. As quoted in Corey Kilgannon, 'The Rocket Park Reopens, And Cronkite Reminisces', New York Times (1 Oct 2004), B6.
Science quotes on:  |  Good (906)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  John F. Kennedy (53)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moon (252)  |  President (36)  |  Return (133)  |  Safe (61)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)

Wherever we seek to find constancy we discover change. Having looked at the old woodlands in Hutcheson Forest, at Isle Royale, and in the wilderness of the boundary waters, in the land of the moose and the wolf, and having uncovered the histories hidden within the trees and within the muds, we find that nature undisturbed is not constant in form, structure, or proportion, but changes at every scale of time and space. The old idea of a static landscape, like a single musical chord sounded forever, must be abandoned, for such a landscape never existed except in our imagination. Nature undisturbed by human influence seems more like a symphony whose harmonies arise from variation and change over many scales of time and space, changing with individual births and deaths, local disruptions and recoveries, larger scale responses to climate from one glacial age to another, and to the slower alterations of soils, and yet larger variations between glacial ages.
Discordant Harmonies (1990), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Age (509)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Arise (162)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Death (406)  |  Discover (571)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Glaciation (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Look (584)  |  Moose (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Response (56)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seek (218)  |  Single (365)  |  Soil (98)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Symphony (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Tree (269)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Variation (93)  |  Water (503)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Wolf (11)

Who could have believed that … the introduction into the human body of a small particle of matter from a cow’s udder might be the means of saving thousands of human lives? We learn from these and innumerable similar instances that the highest truths lie hid in the simplest facts; that, unlike human proclamations, nature’s teachings are not by sound of trumpet, but often in the stillest voice, by indirect hints and obscure suggestions.
From Address (Oct 1874) delivered at Guy’s Hospital, 'On The Study of Medicine', printed in British Medical journal (1874), 2, 425. Collected in Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Cow (42)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Hint (21)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Inoculation (9)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Particle (200)  |  Proclamation (3)  |  Save (126)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Trumpet (3)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Voice (54)

With a tone control at a single touch
I can make Caruso sound like Hutch,
I never did care for music much—
It’s the high fidelity!
A parody of the hi-fi addict. From lyrics of 'Song of Reproduction', in the Michael Flanders and Donald Swann revue, At the Drop of a Hat (1959). As quoted in Steven D. Lubar, InfoCulture: The Smithsonian Book of Information Age Inventions (1993), 186. “Hutch” was the popularly used name of Leslie Hutchinson (1900-1969), one of the biggest London cabaret entertainers of the 1920s-30s.
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Control (182)  |  High (370)  |  Music (133)  |  Never (1089)  |  Single (365)  |  Tone (22)  |  Touch (146)

Would it sound too presumptuous to speak of perception as a quintessence of sensation, language (that is, communicable thought) of perception, mathematics of language? We should then have four terms differentiating from inorganic matter and from each other the Vegetable, Animal, Rational, and Super-sensual modes of existence.
From Presidential Address (1869) to the British Association, Exeter, Section A, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 652, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Existence (481)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Matter (821)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perception (97)  |  Quintessence (4)  |  Rational (95)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Speak (240)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vegetable (49)


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.