TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 25 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their arithmetical magnitude.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index S > Category: Steam Engine

Steam Engine Quotes (47 quotes)

Coloured lithograph, steam engine & pump irrigating field.  Wellcome Library, London CC BY 4.0. ICV No 24929BL
A steam engine, with a pump irrigating fields. (source)

[I predict] the electricity generated by water power is the only thing that is going to keep future generations from freezing. Now we use coal whenever we produce electric power by steam engine, but there will be a time when there’ll be no more coal to use. That time is not in the very distant future. … Oil is too insignificant in its available supply to come into much consideration.
As quoted in 'Electricity Will Keep The World From Freezing Up', New York Times (12 Nov 1911), SM4.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Distant (33)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Generator (2)  |  Hydroelectricity (2)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  More (2558)  |  Oil (67)  |  Power (771)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Produce (117)  |  Steam (81)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Power (6)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

[W]e pity our fathers for dying before steam and galvanism, sulphuric ether and ocean telegraphs, photograph and spectrograph arrived, as cheated out of their human estate.
'Works and Days', Emerson's Complete Works (1883), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Cheat (13)  |  Ether (37)  |  Father (113)  |  Galvanism (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invention (400)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Photography (9)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Steam (81)  |  Telegraph (45)

A carriage (steam) will set out from Washington in the morning, the passengers will breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia, and sup in New York the same day.
(about 1804). As quoted in Henry Howe, 'Oliver Evans', Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics: (1840), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Breakfast (10)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Dine (5)  |  Eat (108)  |  Morning (98)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Philadelphia (3)  |  Set (400)  |  Steam (81)  |  Washington (7)  |  Will (2350)

About 6 or 8 years ago My Ingenious friend Mr John Robinson having [contrived] conceived that a fire engine might be made without a Lever—by Inverting the Cylinder & placing it above the mouth of the pit proposed to me to make a model of it which was set about by having never Compleated & I [being] having at that time Ignorant little knoledge of the machine however I always thought the Machine Might be applied to [more] other as valuable purposes [than] as drawing Water.
Entry in notebook (1765). The bracketed words in square brackets were crossed out by Watt. in Eric Robinson and Douglas McKie (eds.), Partners in Science: Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black (1970), 434.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bracket (2)  |  Completed (30)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Cylinder (11)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Friend (180)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lever (13)  |  Little (717)  |  Machine (271)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pit (20)  |  Proposal (21)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Set (400)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)  |  Water (503)  |  Year (963)

Already the steam-engine works our mines, impels our ships, excavates our ports and our rivers, forges iron, fashions wood, grinds grain, spins and weaves our cloths, transports the heaviest burdens, etc. It appears that it must some day serve as a universal motor, and be substituted for animal power, waterfalls, and air currents.
'Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu' (1824) translated by R.H. Thurston in Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power (1890), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Already (226)  |  Animal (651)  |  Burden (30)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Current (122)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Excavation (8)  |  Fashioning (2)  |  Forge (10)  |  Grain (50)  |  Grind (11)  |  Impelling (2)  |  Iron (99)  |  Mine (78)  |  Motor (23)  |  Must (1525)  |  Port (2)  |  Power (771)  |  River (140)  |  Serving (15)  |  Ship (69)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Steam (81)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Transport (31)  |  Universal (198)  |  Waterfall (5)  |  Weave (21)  |  Weaving (6)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

Ask a follower of Bacon what [science] the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready; “It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl along without horses, to cross the ocean in ships which run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits; for it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-point to-morrow.”
From essay (Jul 1837) on 'Francis Bacon' in Edinburgh Review. In Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay and Lady Trevelyan (ed.) The Works of Lord Macaulay Complete (1871), Vol. 6, 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Against (332)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bridge Engineering (8)  |  Business (156)  |  Call (781)  |  Car (75)  |  Cave (17)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Depth (97)  |  Descend (49)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Estuary (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Father (113)  |  Fertility (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Knot (11)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lighting (5)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mining (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Office (71)  |  Pain (144)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Range (104)  |  Rest (287)  |  River (140)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soil (98)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Strength (139)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Thunderbolt (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vision (127)  |  Warrior (6)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

Even the development of the steam engine owed but little to the advancement of science.
Science and Common Sense (1951), 299-300.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Development (441)  |  Engine (99)  |  Little (717)  |  Steam (81)

Guido was as much enchanted by the rudiments of algebra as he would have been if I had given him an engine worked by steam, with a methylated spirit lamp to heat the boiler; more enchanted, perhaps for the engine would have got broken, and, remaining always itself, would in any case have lost its charm, while the rudiments of algebra continued to grow and blossom in his mind with an unfailing luxuriance. Every day he made the discovery of something which seemed to him exquisitely beautiful; the new toy was inexhaustible in its potentialities.
In Young Archimedes: And Other Stories (1924), 299. The fictional character, Guido, is a seven year old boy. Methylated spirit is an alcohol fuel.
Science quotes on:  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Boiler (7)  |  Break (109)  |  Broken (56)  |  Charm (54)  |  Continue (179)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enchanted (2)  |  Engine (99)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Give (208)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inexhaustible (26)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Potential (75)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Rudiment (6)  |  Something (718)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam (81)  |  Toy (22)  |  Unfailing (6)  |  Work (1402)

I had gone on a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon. I had entered the Green [of Glasgow] by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street—had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the condensed steam and injection water if I used a jet, as in Newcomen's engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an outlet could be got at the depth of 35 or 36 feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air. ... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind.
[In Robert Hart's words, a recollection of the description of Watt's moment of inspiration, in May 1765, for improving Thomas Newcomen's steam engine.]
In Robert Hart, 'Reminiscences of James Watt' (read 2 Nov 1857), Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society (1859), Vol. 1, 1. Note that these are not the verbatim words of James Watt, but are only a recollection of them by Robert Hart, who is quoting as best he can from memory of a conversation he and his brother had with James Watt that took place over 43 years previously. In his Reminiscences, Hart explains, “I have accordingly thrown together the following brief narrative:— As these meetings took place forty-three years since, many observations that were made at the time may have escaped me at present; yet, when the same subjects are touched on, I have as distinct recollection of his treatment of them as if it were yesterday.”
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Communication (101)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Cylinder (11)  |  Depth (97)  |  Doing (277)  |  Elastic (2)  |  Engine (99)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Extract (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Gate (33)  |  Green (65)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Injection (9)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Invention (400)  |  Large (398)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Thomas Newcomen (2)  |  Old (499)  |  Pass (241)  |  Run (158)  |  Saw (160)  |  Small (489)  |  Steam (81)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities, and even from the great engineer, the late James Watt, who said ... that I deserved hanging for bringing into use the high-pressure engine. This has so far been my reward from the public; but should this be all, I shall be satisfied by the great secret pleasure and laudable pride that I feel in my own breast from having been the instrument of bringing forward new principles and new arrangements of boundless value to my country, and however much I may be straitened in pecuniary circumstances, the great honour of being a useful subject can never be taken from me, which far exceeds riches.
From letter to Davies Gilbert, written a few months before Trevithick's last illness. Quoted in Francis Trevithick, Life of Richard Trevithick: With an Account of his Inventions (1872), Vol. 2, 395-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biography (254)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Call (781)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Country (269)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Feel (371)  |  Folly (44)  |  Forward (104)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hanging (4)  |  High (370)  |  Honour (58)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invention (400)  |  Late (119)  |  Madness (33)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Pride (84)  |  Principle (530)  |  Public (100)  |  Reward (72)  |  Riches (14)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Secret (216)  |  Subject (543)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)  |  James Watt (11)  |  World (1850)

I have known in Cornwall a work with three lifts of about 18 feet each, lift and carry a 3½-inch bore; that cost forty-two shillings a day. I dare undertake that my engine shall raise you as much water for eight-pence as will cost you a shilling to raise the like with your old engines in coal pits.
Quoted from the Miner’s Friend in Francis Trevithick, Life of Richard Trevithick: With an Account of His Inventions (1872), Vol. 1, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Mining (22)

I have no doubt but that my engines will propel boats against the current of the Mississippi, and wagons on turnpike roads, with great profit.
Address to Lancaster turnpike company (25 Sep 1804). As cited in 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Current (122)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Engine (99)  |  Great (1610)  |  Mississippi (7)  |  Profit (56)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Road (71)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Turnpike (2)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Will (2350)

I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have—POWER.
About the improved steam engine invented by James Watt and brought into production at Boulton’s manufactory.
Entry for Friday 22 March 1776. In George Birkbeck-Hill (ed.), Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1934-50), Vol. 2, 459.
Science quotes on:  |  Desire (212)  |  Engine (99)  |  Power (771)  |  Production (190)  |  Steam (81)  |  James Watt (11)  |  World (1850)

If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time.
Lo! (1931, 1941), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Blossom (22)  |  Engine (99)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invention (400)  |  Logic (311)  |  Other (2233)  |  Progress (492)  |  Social (261)  |  Steam (81)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Use (771)

In science its main worth is temporary, as a stepping-stone to something beyond. Even the Principia, as Newton with characteristic modesty entitled his great work, is truly but the beginning of a natural philosophy, and no more an ultimate work, than Watt’s steam-engine, or Arkwright's spinning-machine.
Co-author with his brother Augustus William Hare Guesses At Truth, By Two Brothers: Second Edition: With Large Additions (1848), Second Series, 46. (The volume is introduced as “more than three fourths new.” This quote is identified as by Julius; Augustus had died in 1833.)
Science quotes on:  |  Sir Richard Arkwright (3)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Engine (99)  |  Great (1610)  |  Machine (271)  |  Modesty (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Principia (14)  |  Something (718)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Spinning Machine (2)  |  Steam (81)  |  Stepping Stone (2)  |  Stone (168)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Title (20)  |  Truly (118)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

In the beginning of the year 1800 the illustrious professor [Volta] conceived the idea of forming a long column by piling up, in succession, a disc of copper, a disc of zinc, and a disc of wet cloth, with scrupulous attention to not changing this order. What could be expected beforehand from such a combination? Well, I do not hesitate to say, this apparently inert mass, this bizarre assembly, this pile of so many couples of unequal metals separated by a little liquid is, in the singularity of effect, the most marvellous instrument which men have yet invented, the telescope and the steam engine not excepted.
In François Arago, 'Bloge for Volta' (1831), Oeuvres Completes de François Arago (1854), Vol. 1, 219-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Assembly (13)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bizarre (6)  |  Changing (7)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Column (15)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Copper (25)  |  Couple (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expected (5)  |  Forming (42)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustrious (10)  |  Inert (14)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Mass (160)  |  Metal (88)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Pile (12)  |  Professor (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scrupulous (7)  |  Separate (151)  |  Singularity (4)  |  Steam (81)  |  Succession (80)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (5)  |  Wet (6)  |  Year (963)  |  Zinc (3)

In the heat of the sun, the ocean is the boiler and condenser of a gigantic steam engine, a weather engine that governs crops, floods, droughts, frosts, hurricanes.
In 'Ocean Policy and Reasonable Utopias', The Forum (Summer 1981), 16, No. 5, 900.
Science quotes on:  |  Boiler (7)  |  Condenser (4)  |  Crop (26)  |  Drought (14)  |  Engine (99)  |  Flood (52)  |  Frost (15)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Govern (66)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hurricane (4)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Steam (81)  |  Sun (407)  |  Weather (49)

It is a remarkable illustration of the ranging power of the human intellect that a principle first detected in connection with the clumsy puffing of the early steam engines should be found to apply to the whole world, and possibly, even to the whole cosmic universe.
In Man and Energy (1955, 1963), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Clumsy (7)  |  Connection (171)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Detect (45)  |  Early (196)  |  Engine (99)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Steam (81)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

It is arguable whether the human race have been gainers by the march of science beyond the steam engine. Electricity opens a field of infinite conveniences to ever greater numbers, but they may well have to pay dearly for them. But anyhow in my thought I stop short of the internal combustion engine which has made the world so much smaller. Still more must we fear the consequences of entrusting a human race so little different from their predecessors of the so-called barbarous ages such awful agencies as the atomic bomb. Give me the horse.
Address to the Royal College of Surgeons (10 Jul 1951). Collected in Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fear (212)  |  Field (378)  |  Greater (288)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Internal (69)  |  Internal Combustion Engine (4)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  March (48)  |  March Of Science (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Short (200)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Steam (81)  |  Still (614)  |  Thought (995)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine–each was discovered by one man.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Certain (557)  |  Clear (111)  |  Countless (39)  |  Creative (144)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Discover (571)  |  Edible (7)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Generation (256)  |  Individual (420)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Moral (203)  |  Plant (320)  |  Receive (117)  |  Society (350)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Steam (81)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Trace (109)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)

It is sunlight in modified form which turns all the windmills and water wheels and the machinery which they drive. It is the energy derived from coal and petroleum (fossil sunlight) which propels our steam and gas engines, our locomotives and automobiles. ... Food is simply sunlight in cold storage.
In New Dietetics: What to Eat and How (1921), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Automobile (23)  |  Coal (64)  |  Cold (115)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gasoline (4)  |  Locomotive (8)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Petroleum (8)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Propel (2)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  Solar Power (10)  |  Steam (81)  |  Storage (6)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Turn (454)  |  Water (503)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Windmill (4)

It is worthy of note that nearly all that has been done for the improvement of the steam engine has been accomplished, not by men educated in colleges or technical schools, but by laborers, mechanics, and engine-men. There seem to be instances where the mechanical instinct takes precedence over the higher powers of the mind, in efficiency in harnessing the forces of nature and causing them to do our work.
In paper 'Stephenson and Transportation' (1916), collected in Francis Edgar Stanley, Theories Worth Having and Other Papers (1919), 66-67.
Science quotes on:  |  College (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Engine (99)  |  Force (497)  |  Force Of Nature (9)  |  Harnessing (5)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Power (771)  |  School (227)  |  Steam (81)  |  Work (1402)

James Watt patented his steam engine on the eve of the American Revolution, consummating a relationship between coal and the new Promethean spirit of the age, and humanity made its first tentative steps into an industrial way of life that would, over the next two centuries, forever change the world.
In The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth (2002), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eve (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Forever (111)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Patent (34)  |  Prometheus (7)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam (81)  |  Step (234)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Two (936)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  World (1850)

My steamboat voyage to Albany and back, has turned out rather more favorable than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is one hundred and fifty miles; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by, the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved.
Letter to Joel Barlow, Philadelphia, from New York (22 Aug 1807), in The Literary Magazine, and American Register for 1807 (1808), Vol. 8, No. 47, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Back (395)  |  Both (496)  |  Coming (114)  |  Distance (171)  |  Down (455)  |  Engine (99)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Perform (123)  |  Power (771)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholly (88)

Neither had Watt of the Steam engine a heroic origin, any kindred with the princes of this world. The princes of this world were shooting their partridges… While this man with blackened fingers, with grim brow, was searching out, in his workshop, the Fire-secret.
From Chartism, collected in James Wood (ed.) The Carlyle Reader (1894), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Black (46)  |  Brow (3)  |  Engine (99)  |  Finger (48)  |  Fire (203)  |  Grim (6)  |  Hero (45)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Man (2252)  |  Origin (250)  |  Partridge (2)  |  Prince (13)  |  Searching (7)  |  Secret (216)  |  Shooting (6)  |  Steam (81)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Workshop (14)  |  World (1850)

No other part of science has contributed as much to the liberation of the human spirit as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Yet, at the same time, few other parts of science are held to be so recondite. Mention of the Second Law raises visions of lumbering steam engines, intricate mathematics, and infinitely incomprehensible entropy. Not many would pass C.P. Snow’s test of general literacy, in which not knowing the Second Law is equivalent to not having read a work of Shakespeare.
In The Second Law (1984), Preface, vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Contribution (93)  |  Engine (99)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  General (521)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Spirit (12)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Law (913)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Literacy (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Read (308)  |  Recondite (8)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Snow (39)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam (81)  |  Test (221)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vision (127)  |  Work (1402)

Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power—that is, power to move things. Take any given space of the earth’s surface— for instance, Illinois; and all the power exerted by all the men, and beasts, and running-water, and steam, over and upon it, shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space. And yet it has not, so far in the world’s history, become proportionably valuable as a motive power. It is applied extensively, and advantageously, to sail-vessels in navigation. Add to this a few windmills, and pumps, and you have about all. … As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of it.
Lecture 'Discoveries and Inventions', (1860) in Discoveries and Inventions (1915).
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Applied (176)  |  Beast (58)  |  Become (821)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exert (40)  |  Force (497)  |  Greatest (330)  |  History (716)  |  Invention (400)  |  Largest (39)  |  Motive (62)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Power (771)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  Running (61)  |  Sail (37)  |  Ship (69)  |  Space (523)  |  Steam (81)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Windmill (4)  |  World (1850)

Science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to science.
Attributed (1917 ?). The quote means that whereas the steam engine was developed with little use of scientific theory, the machine spurred great advances in science including the ideas of entropy and thermodynamics that were not previously suggested by nature. The quote appears in various books without source citation, for example, in Charles Coulston Gillispie, The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas (1960), 357. If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Engine (99)  |  More (2558)  |  Owe (71)  |  Steam (81)

Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams—day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing—are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.
Opening paragraph of preface, 'To My Readers', The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Apt (9)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Betterment (4)  |  Brain (281)  |  Child (333)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Create (245)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Day Dream (2)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dream (222)  |  Educator (7)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fairy Tale (7)  |  Foster (12)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Invent (57)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  Open (277)  |  Please (68)  |  Present (630)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reality (274)  |  State (505)  |  Steam (81)  |  Talking (76)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Untold (6)  |  Value (393)  |  Whiz (2)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

Soon shall thy arm, UNCONQUER’D STEAM! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
From 'Botanic Garden' (1781), part 1, canto 1, lines 289-92. The Botanic Garden, with Philosophical Notes (4th Ed., 1799). At the time Erasmus Darwin penned his poem, he would have been aware of a limited history of steam power: Edward Someset, 2nd Marquis of Worcester steam pump (1663), Thomas Savery's steam pump (1698), Thomas Newcomen atmospheric engine (1712), Matthew Boulton and James Watt first commercial steam engine (1776). Watt did not build his first 'double acting' engine, which enabled using a flywheel, until 1783 (two years after Darwin's poem). It was also after Darwin's poem was written that the first steamboat, using paddles, the Pyroscaphe steamed up a French river on 15 Jul 1783. Darwin's predicted future for the steam engine car did not come to pass until Richard Trevithick tested his Camborne road engine (1801). The Wrights' first airplane flight came a century later, in 1903.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Arm (82)  |  Bear (162)  |  Car (75)  |  Chariot (9)  |  Expand (56)  |  Field (378)  |  Flying (74)  |  Poem (104)  |  Slow (108)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam (81)  |  Through (846)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wing (79)

The animal frame, though destined to fulfill so many other ends, is as a machine more perfect than the best contrived steam-engine—that is, is capable of more work with the same expenditure of fuel.
'On Matter, Living Force, and Heat' (1847). In The Scientific Papers of James Prescott Joule (1884), Vol. 1, 271.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Best (467)  |  Capable (174)  |  Destined (42)  |  End (603)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Machine (271)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Steam (81)  |  Work (1402)

The mighty steam-engine has its germ in the simple boiler in which the peasant prepares his food. The huge ship is but the expansion of the floating leaf freighted with its cargo of atmospheric dust; and the flying balloon is but the infant's soap-bubble lightly laden and overgrown. But the Telescope, even in its most elementary form, embodies a novel and gigantic idea, without an analogue in nature, and without a prototype in experience
Stories of Inventors and Discoverers in Science and the Useful Arts (1860), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogue (7)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Boiler (7)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Cargo (6)  |  Cook (20)  |  Dust (68)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Experience (494)  |  Flying (74)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infant (26)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Origin (250)  |  Peasant (9)  |  Prototype (9)  |  Ship (69)  |  Simple (426)  |  Steam (81)  |  Telescope (106)

The more we resist the steam the greater is the effect of the engine. On these principles, very light, but powerful engines, can be made, suitable for propelling boats and land-carriages, without the great incumbrance of their own weight
From 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Boat (17)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Effect (414)  |  Encumbrance (5)  |  Engine (99)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Principle (530)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Resist (15)  |  Steam (81)  |  Suitable (10)  |  Weight (140)

The power of my [steam] engine rises in a geometrical proportion, while the consumption of fuel has only an arithmetical ratio; in such proportion that every time I added one fourth more to the consumption of fuel, the powers of the engine were doubled.
From 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 211-212.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Consumption (16)  |  Double (18)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Power (771)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Rise (169)  |  Steam (81)  |  Time (1911)

The production of motion in the steam engine always occurs in circumstances which it is necessary to recognize, namely when the equilibrium of caloric is restored, or (to express this differently) when caloric passes from the body at one temperature to another body at a lower temperature.
'Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu et sur les Machines Propres a Développer cette Puissance' (1824). Trans. Robert Fox, Reflexions on the Motive Power of Fire (1986), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Engine (99)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Express (192)  |  Heat (180)  |  Motion (320)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Occur (151)  |  Production (190)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Steam (81)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermodynamics (40)

The steam-engine I call fire-demon and great; but it is nothing to the invention of fire.
From Chartism, collected in James Wood (ed.) The Carlyle Reader (1894), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Demon (8)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Great (1610)  |  Invention (400)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Steam (81)

The steam-engine in its manifold applications, the crime-decreasing gas-lamp, the lightning conductor, the electric telegraph, the law of storms and rules for the mariner's guidance in them, the power of rendering surgical operations painless, the measures for preserving public health, and for preventing or mitigating epidemics,—such are among the more important practical results of pure scientific research, with which mankind have been blessed and States enriched.
President's Address to the British Association, Leeds (1858). In Charles W. Vincent and James Mason (eds.), The Year-book of Facts in Science and Art (1859), title page.
Science quotes on:  |  Anesthetic (4)  |  Application (257)  |  Bless (25)  |  Blessed (20)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Crime (39)  |  Electric (76)  |  Engine (99)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gas Lamp (2)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Health (210)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Law (913)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Pain (144)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Public Health (12)  |  Pure (299)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  State (505)  |  Steam (81)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Telegraph (45)

The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines, from city to city, almost as fast as birds fly,—fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Passing through the air with such velocity, changing the scene in such rapid succession, will be the most exhilarating exercise.
(about 1804). As quoted in Henry Howe, 'Oliver Evans', Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics: (1840), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bird (163)  |  Change (639)  |  City (87)  |  Engine (99)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Exhilarating (3)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fly (153)  |  Hour (192)  |  Most (1728)  |  Passing (76)  |  People (1031)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Scene (36)  |  Stage (152)  |  Steam (81)  |  Succession (80)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Will (2350)

The train, panting up past lonely farms,
Fed by the fireman's restless arms…
Past cotton grass and moorland boulder,
Shoveling white steam over her shoulder.
Poem written as narration for documentary film "Night Mail" (1936), made for the British Post Office.
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Boulder (8)  |  Farm (28)  |  Grass (49)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Moorland (2)  |  Past (355)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Steam (81)  |  Train (118)  |  White (132)

There are many points in the history of an invention which the inventor himself is apt to overlook as trifling, but in which posterity never fail to take a deep interest. The progress of the human mind is never traced with such a lively interest as through the steps by which it perfects a great invention; and there is certainly no invention respecting which this minute information will be more eagerly sought after, than in the case of the steam-engine.
Quoted in The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (1854), Vol.1, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainly (185)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Deep (241)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fail (191)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Information (173)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Lively (17)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Point (584)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Steam (81)  |  Step (234)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

There are two kinds of equality, one potential and the other actual, one theoretical and the other practical. We should not be satisfied by merely quoting the doctrine of equality as laid down in the Declaration of Independence, but we should give it practical illustration. We have to do as well as to be. If we had built great ships, sailed around the world, taught the science of navigation, discovered far-off islands, capes, and continents, enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge, improved the conditions of man’s existence, brought valuable contributions of art, science, and literature, revealed great truths, organized great states, administered great governments, defined the laws of the universe, formulated systems of mental and moral philosophy, invented railroads, steam engines, mowing machines, sewing machines, taught the sun to take pictures, the lightning to carry messages, we then might claim, not only potential and theoretical equality, but actual and practical equality.
From Speech (16 Apr 1889) delivered to the Bethel Literary and Historical Society, Washington D.C., 'The Nation’s Problem'. Collected in Philip S. Foner, Yuval Taylor (eds.), Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings (2000), 731.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Declaration Of Independence (5)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Equality (34)  |  Existence (481)  |  Government (116)  |  Improve (64)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Machine (271)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Photography (9)  |  Potential (75)  |  Practical (225)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Sewing (4)  |  Ship (69)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)

Those who admire modern civilization usually identify it with the steam engine and the electric telegraph.
In 'Maxims for Revolutionists: Civilization', in Man and Superman (1903), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Electric (76)  |  Engine (99)  |  Modern (402)  |  Steam (81)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Usually (176)

Those who understand the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their lives in trying to replace them with something better.
In 'Maxims for Revolutionists: Civilization', in Man and Superman (1903), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Electric (76)  |  Engine (99)  |  Invention (400)  |  Live (650)  |  Something (718)  |  Spend (97)  |  Steam (81)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)

Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy.
Edward Teller with Judith L. Shoolery, Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics (2001), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Application (257)  |  Being (1276)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electron (96)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Equivalence (7)  |  First (1302)  |  Fission (10)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Long (778)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Role (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam (81)  |  Technology (281)  |  Today (321)  |  Unusual (37)

True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the useful things will get studied without the aid of scientific men. To employ these rare minds on such work is like running a steam engine by burning diamonds.
From 'Lessons from the History of Science: The Scientific Attitude' (c.1896), in Collected Papers (1931), Vol. 1, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Distinctively (2)  |  Employ (115)  |  Engine (99)  |  Genius (301)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Rare (94)  |  Running (61)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Steam (81)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  True (239)  |  True Science (25)  |  Useful (260)  |  Useless (38)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

War and the steam engine joined forces and forged what was to become one of the most delicate of concepts. Sadi Carnot … formed the opinion that one cause of France’s defeat had been her industrial inferiority. … Carnot saw steam power as a universal motor. … Carnot was a visionary and sharp analyst of what was needed to improve the steam engine. … Carnot’s work … laid the foundations of [thermodynamics].
In The Second Law (1984), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyst (8)  |  Become (821)  |  Sadi Carnot (4)  |  Cause (561)  |  Concept (242)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Engine (99)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  France (29)  |  Improve (64)  |  Industry (159)  |  Inferiority (7)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motor (23)  |  Need (320)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Power (771)  |  Saw (160)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Universal (198)  |  Visionary (6)  |  War (233)  |  Work (1402)

We have also here an acting cause to account for that balance so often observed in nature,—a deficiency in one set of organs always being compensated by an increased development of some others—powerful wings accompanying weak feet, or great velocity making up for the absence of defensive weapons; for it has been shown that all varieties in which an unbalanced deficiency occurred could not long continue their existen The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow.
In 'On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type', Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology (1858), 3, 61-62.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Balance (82)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Centrifugal (3)  |  Compensation (8)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Continue (179)  |  Correct (95)  |  Defense (26)  |  Deficiency (15)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Engine (99)  |  Evident (92)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extinction (80)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foot (65)  |  Governor (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Increased (3)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Making (300)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Organ (118)  |  Other (2233)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reach (286)  |  Set (400)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam (81)  |  Step (234)  |  Variety (138)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Weak (73)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Wing (79)


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
on Blue Sky.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.