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: “Dangerous... to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index T > Category: Term

Term Quotes (357 quotes)

[First use of the term science fiction:] We hope it will not be long before we may have other works of Science-Fiction [like Richard Henry Horne's The Poor Artist], as we believe such books likely to fulfil a good purpose, and create an interest, where, unhappily, science alone might fail.
[Thomas] Campbell says, that “Fiction in Poetry is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanting resemblance.” Now this applies especially to Science-Fiction, in which the revealed truths of Science may be given interwoven with a pleasing story which may itself be poetical and true—thus circulating a knowledge of Poetry of Science, clothed in a garb of the Poetry of life.
In A Little Earnest Book Upon a Great Old Subject (1851), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Artist (97)  |  Book (413)  |  Create (245)  |  Fail (191)  |  First (1302)  |  Garb (6)  |  Good (906)  |  Hope (321)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interwoven (10)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poem (104)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Poor (139)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Say (989)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Soft (30)  |  Story (122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

[Florence Nightingale] was a great administrator, and to reach excellence here is impossible without being an ardent student of statistics. Florence Nightingale has been rightly termed the “Passionate Statistician.” Her statistics were more than a study, they were indeed her religion. For her, Quetelet was the hero as scientist, and the presentation copy of his Physique Sociale is annotated by her on every page. Florence Nightingale believed—and in all the actions of her life acted upon that belief—that the administrator could only be successful if he were guided by statistical knowledge. The legislator—to say nothing of the politician—too often failed for want of this knowledge. Nay, she went further: she held that the universe—including human communities—was evolving in accordance with a divine plan; that it was man's business to endeavour to understand this plan and guide his actions in sympathy with it. But to understand God's thoughts, she held we must study statistics, for these are the measure of his purpose. Thus the study of statistics was for her a religious duty.
In Karl Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton (1924), Vol. 2, 414-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Administrator (11)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Business (156)  |  Copy (34)  |  Divine (112)  |  Duty (71)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Fail (191)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hero (45)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Florence Nightingale (34)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Passionate (22)  |  Plan (122)  |  Politician (40)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Purpose (336)  |   Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quételet (2)  |  Reach (286)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Successful (134)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)

[For imaginary numbers,] their success … has been what the French term a succès de scandale.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 87. The French phrase (success from scandal), is applied to notoriety attributed to public controversy.
Science quotes on:  |  French (21)  |  Imaginary Number (6)  |  Number (710)  |  Scandal (5)  |  Success (327)

[From uranium] there are present at least two distinct types of radiation one that is very readily absorbed, which will be termed for convenience the α radiation, and the other of a more penetrative character, which will be termed the β radiation.
Originating the names for these two types of radiation. In 'Uranium Radiation and the Electrical Conduction Produced by It', Philosophical Magazine (1899), 47, 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Absorption (13)  |  Alpha Ray (4)  |  Character (259)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Distinction (72)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Present (630)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Will (2350)

[O]ur long-term security is threatened by a problem at least as dangerous as chemical, nuclear or biological weapons, or indeed international terrorism: human-induced climate change. … The impacts of global warming are such that I have no hesitation in describing it as a “weapon of mass destruction.” Like terrorism, this weapon knows no boundaries. It can strike anywhere, in any form…
London Guardian (28 Jul 2003)
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Form (976)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impact (45)  |  Indeed (323)  |  International (40)  |  Know (1538)  |  Long (778)  |  Mass (160)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Weapon (17)  |  Problem (731)  |  Security (51)  |  Strike (72)  |  Terrorism (3)  |  Threat (36)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Warming (24)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

[S]ome physicists describe gravity in terms of ten dimensions all curled up. But those aren't real words—just placeholders, used to refer to parts of abstract equations.
In God's Debris: A Thought Experiment (2004), 20-21.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Curl (4)  |  Describe (132)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Equation (138)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Real (159)  |  Reference (33)  |  Ten (3)  |  Terms (184)  |  Word (650)

[Scientists] define these [terms] in tight phrases which convey a meaning only to those who already understand it.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Definition (238)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Terms (184)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

[The chemical bond] First, it is related to the disposition of two electrons (remember, no one has ever seen an electron!): next, these electrons have their spins pointing in opposite directions (remember, no one can ever measure the spin of a particular electron!): then, the spatial distribution of these electrons is described analytically with some degree of precision (remember, there is no way of distinguishing experimentally the density distribution of one electron from another!): concepts like hybridization, covalent and ionic structures, resonance, all appear, not one of which corresponds to anything that is directly measurable. These concepts make a chemical bond seem so real, so life-like, that I can almost see it. Then I wake with a shock to the realization that a chemical bond does not exist; it is a figment of the imagination that we have invented, and no more real than the square root of - 1. I will not say that the known is explained in terms of the unknown, for that is to misconstrue the sense of intellectual adventure. There is no explanation: there is form: there is structure: there is symmetry: there is growth: and there is therefore change and life.
Quoted in his obituary, Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 1974, 20, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Bond (46)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Concept (242)  |  Covalent (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Density (25)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Electron (96)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Precision (72)  |  Realization (44)  |  Remember (189)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shock (38)  |  Spin (26)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Structure (365)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

[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)  |  Sound (187)  |  Think (1122)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

[The toughest part of being in charge is] killing ideas that are great but poorly timed. And delivering tough feedback that’s difficult to hear but that I know will help people—and the team—in the long term.
In Issie Lapowsky, 'Scott Belsky', Inc. (Nov 2013), 140. Biography in Context,
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Business (156)  |  Charge (63)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Feedback (10)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hear (144)  |  Help (116)  |  Idea (881)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leadership (13)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Term (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Poorly (2)  |  Team (17)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tough (22)  |  Will (2350)

[There] are cases where there is no dishonesty involved but where people are tricked into false results by a lack of understanding about what human beings can do to themselves in the way of being led astray by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions. These are examples of pathological science. These are things that attracted a great deal of attention. Usually hundreds of papers have been published upon them. Sometimes they have lasted for fifteen or twenty years and then they gradually die away.
[Coining the term “pathological science” for the self-deceiving application of science to a phenomenon that doesn't exist.]
From a Colloquium at The Knolls Research Laboratory (18 Dec 1953). Transcribed and edited by R. N. Hall. In General Electric Laboratories, Report No. 68-C-035 (April 1968).
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Astray (13)  |  Attention (196)  |  Being (1276)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deceiving (5)  |  Dishonesty (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exist (458)  |  False (105)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Involved (90)  |  Lack (127)  |  Last (425)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pathological (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Deception (2)  |  Subjective (20)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Trick (36)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Usually (176)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wishful (6)  |  Year (963)

Combien de gens se font abstraits pour paraître profonds! La plupart des termes abstraits sont des ombres qui cachent des vides.
How many people become abstract in order to appear profound! Most abstract terms are shadows that conceal a void.
Quoted in M. Paul De Raynal, Pensées de J. Joubert (1862), 456.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Become (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  People (1031)  |  Profound (105)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Terms (184)  |  Void (31)

Conclusions
I. A curve has been found representing the frequency distribution of standard deviations of samples drawn from a normal population.
II. A curve has been found representing the frequency distribution of values of the means of such samples, when these values are measured from the mean of the population in terms of the standard deviation of the sample…
IV. Tables are given by which it can be judged whether a series of experiments, however short, have given a result which conforms to any required standard of accuracy or whether it is necessary to continue the investigation.
'The Probable Error of a Mean', Biometrika, 1908, 6, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Continue (179)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Population (115)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Sample (19)  |  Series (153)  |  Short (200)  |  Standard Deviation (3)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Table (105)  |  Terms (184)  |  Value (393)

Energie is the operation, efflux or activity of any being: as the light of the Sunne is the energie of the Sunne, and every phantasm of the soul is the energie of the soul.
[The first recorded definition of the term energy in English]
In Platonica: A Platonicall Song of the Soul (1642). In this book of poems, More uses the word energie many times, and in the opening section, 'To the Reader'. The definition quoted appears at the end of the book in 'The interpretation of the more unusual names or words that occurre in the foregoing Poems.'
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Being (1276)  |  Definition (238)  |  Energy (373)  |  First (1302)  |  Light (635)  |  Operation (221)  |  Phantasm (3)  |  Record (161)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sun (407)

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)  |  Sound (187)  |  Step (234)  |  Stop (89)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wall (71)

The classification of facts, the recognition of their sequence and relative significance is the function of science, and the habit of forming a judgment upon these facts unbiassed by personal feeling is characteristic of what may be termed the scientific frame of mind.
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Classification (102)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Formation (100)  |  Forming (42)  |  Frame Of Mind (3)  |  Function (235)  |  Habit (174)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Personal (75)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Relative (42)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Significance (114)

Trimming consists of clipping off little bits here and there from those observations which differ most in excess from the mean, and in sticking them onto those which are too small; a species of 'equitable adjustment,' as a radical would term it, which cannot be admitted in science.
'On the Frauds of Observers', Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (1830). In Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, Statistics and Truth (1997), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Adjustment (21)  |  Consist (223)  |  Data (162)  |  Differ (88)  |  Excess (23)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  Radical (28)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)

A “pacifist male” is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described “pacifists” are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger.
In 'From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long', Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long (1973), 258.
Science quotes on:  |  Assume (43)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Describe (132)  |  False (105)  |  Male (26)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pacifist (2)  |  Self (268)  |  Terms (184)  |  Wind (141)

A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses’ tails on cats’ bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms; but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.
In The Sentiment of Rationality (1882, 1907), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beethoven_Ludwig (8)  |  Bowel (17)  |  Cat (52)  |  Description (89)  |  Different (595)  |  Horse (78)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truly (118)  |  Violin (6)  |  Way (1214)

A closer look at the course followed by developing theory reveals for a start that it is by no means as continuous as one might expect, but full of breaks and at least apparently not along the shortest logical path. Certain methods often afforded the most handsome results only the other day, and many might well have thought that the development of science to infinity would consist in no more than their constant application. Instead, on the contrary, they suddenly reveal themselves as exhausted and the attempt is made to find other quite disparate methods. In that event there may develop a struggle between the followers of the old methods and those of the newer ones. The former's point of view will be termed by their opponents as out-dated and outworn, while its holders in turn belittle the innovators as corrupters of true classical science.
In 'On the Development of the Methods of Theoretical Physics in Recent Times', Populäre Schriften, Essay 14. Address (22 Sep 1899) to the Meeting of Natural Scientists at Munich. Collected in Brian McGuinness (ed.), Ludwig Boltzmann: Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems, Selected Writings (1974), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Break (109)  |  Certain (557)  |  Classical (49)  |  Closer (43)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constant (148)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Course (413)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Event (222)  |  Expect (203)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Former (138)  |  Handsome (4)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Opponent (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Start (237)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turn (454)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

A definition of what we mean by “probability”. … The German Dictionary by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm gives us detailed information: The Latin term “probabilis”, we are told, was at one time translated by “like truth”, or, by “with an appearance of truth” (“mit einem Schein der Wahrheit”). Only since the middle of the seventeenth century has it been rendered by “wahrscheinlich” (lit. truth-resembling).
In Probability, Statistics, and Truth (1939, 2nd. ed., 1957), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  17th Century (20)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Century (319)  |  Definition (238)  |  Detail (150)  |  Dictionary (15)  |  German (37)  |  Information (173)  |  Latin (44)  |  Mean (810)  |  Probability (135)  |  Render (96)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

A distinguished writer [Siméon Denis Poisson] has thus stated the fundamental definitions of the science:
“The probability of an event is the reason we have to believe that it has taken place, or that it will take place.”
“The measure of the probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favourable to that event, to the total number of cases favourable or contrary, and all equally possible” (equally like to happen).
From these definitions it follows that the word probability, in its mathematical acceptation, has reference to the state of our knowledge of the circumstances under which an event may happen or fail. With the degree of information which we possess concerning the circumstances of an event, the reason we have to think that it will occur, or, to use a single term, our expectation of it, will vary. Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave neither room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), 243-244. The Poisson quote is footnoted as from Recherches sur la Probabilité des Jugemens.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Change (639)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demand (131)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Equally (129)  |  Event (222)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Fail (191)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Happen (282)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Measure (241)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Siméon-Denis Poisson (7)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possible (560)  |  Probability (135)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Reason (766)  |  Single (365)  |  State (505)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Total (95)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Writer (90)

A living organism must be studied from two distinct aspects. One of these is the causal-analytic aspect which is so fruitfully applicable to ontogeny. The other is the historical descriptive aspect which is unravelling lines of phylogeny with ever-increasing precision. Each of these aspects may make suggestions concerning the possible significance of events seen under the other, but does not explain or translate them into simpler terms.
'Embryology and Evolution', in G. R. de Beer (ed.), Evolution: Essays on Aspects of Evolutionary Biology presented to Professor E. S. Goodrich on his Seventieth Birthday (1938), 76-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Applicable (31)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Descriptive (18)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Embryology (18)  |  Event (222)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Historical (70)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ontogeny (10)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phylogeny (10)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precision (72)  |  Significance (114)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Terms (184)  |  Translate (21)  |  Two (936)  |  Unraveling (3)

A mouse can fall down a mine shaft a third of a mile deep without injury. A rat falling the same distance would break his bones; a man would simply splash ... Elephants have their legs thickened to an extent that seems disproportionate to us, but this is necessary if their unwieldly bulk is to be moved at all ... A 60-ft. man would weigh 1000 times as much as a normal man, but his thigh bone would have its area increased by only 100 times ... Consequently such an unfortunate monster would break his legs the moment he tried to move.
Expressing, in picturesque terms, the strength of an organism relative to its bulk.
Address at the annual congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Quoted in 'On the Itchen', Time Magazine (Mon. 14 Sep 1925).
Science quotes on:  |  Bone (101)  |  Break (109)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Deep (241)  |  Distance (171)  |  Down (455)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fall (243)  |  Injury (36)  |  Leg (35)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mine (78)  |  Moment (260)  |  Monster (33)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Move (223)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Organism (231)  |  Rat (37)  |  Strength (139)  |  Terms (184)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Weigh (51)

A propos of Distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that I am sure will make you wish your selfe here. The Small Pox so fatal and so general amongst us is here entirely harmless by the invention of engrafting (which is the term they give it). There is a set of old Women who make it their business to perform the Operation.
Letter to Sarah Chiswell (1 Apr 1717). In Robert Halsband (ed.), The Complete Letters of the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1965), Vol. 1, 338.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Distemper (5)  |  General (521)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Inoculation (9)  |  Invention (400)  |  Old (499)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perform (123)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

A right understanding of the words which are names of names, is of great importance in philosophy. The tendency was always strong to believe that whatever receives a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own; and if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious, too high to be an object of sense. The meaning of all general, and especially of all abstract terms, became in this way enveloped in a mystical haze; and none of these have been more generally misunderstood, or have been a more copious source of futile and bewildering speculation, than some of the words which are names of names. Genus, Species, Universal, were long supposed to be designations of sublime hyperphysical realities; Number, instead of a general name of all numerals, was supposed to be the name, if not of a concrete thing, at least of a single property or attribute.
A footnote by John Stuart Mill, which he added as editor of a new edition of a work by his father, James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1869), Vol. 2, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstruse (12)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Bewildering (5)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Copious (6)  |  Definition (238)  |  Entity (37)  |  Existence (481)  |  Futile (13)  |  Genus (27)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Importance (299)  |  Independent (74)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Name (359)  |  Number (710)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Property (177)  |  Source (101)  |  Species (435)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universal (198)  |  Word (650)

A schism has taken place among the chemists. A particular set of them in France have undertaken to remodel all the terms of the science, and to give every substance a new name, the composition, and especially the termination of which, shall define the relation in which it stands to other substances of the same family, But the science seems too much in its infancy as yet, for this reformation; because in fact, the reformation of this year must be reformed again the next year, and so on, changing the names of substances as often as new experiments develop properties in them undiscovered before. The new nomenclature has, accordingly, been already proved to need numerous and important reformations. ... It is espoused by the minority here, and by the very few, indeed, of the foreign chemists. It is particularly rejected in England.
Letter to Dr. Willard (Paris, 1788). In Thomas Jefferson and John P. Foley (ed.), The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (1900), 135. From H.A. Washington, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853-54). Vol 3, 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Composition (86)  |  Compound (117)  |  Develop (278)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Family (101)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Minority (24)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reform (22)  |  Reformation (6)  |  Reformed (4)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Set (400)  |  Stand (284)  |  Substance (253)  |  Termination (4)  |  Terms (184)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Year (963)

A working definition of life, … could [be] in terms of a large molecule made up of carbon compounds that can replicate, or make copies of itself, and metabolize food and energy…: macromolecule, metabolism, replication.
From interview, 'The Seeds of Life', in The Omni Interviews (1984), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Carbon (68)  |  Compound (117)  |  Definition (238)  |  Energy (373)  |  Food (213)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Macromolecule (3)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Replication (10)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)

A world that did not lift a finger when Hitler was wiping out six million Jewish men, women, and children is now saying that the Jewish state of Israel will not survive if it does not come to terms with the Arabs. My feeling is that no one in this universe has the right and the competence to tell Israel what it has to do in order to survive. On the contrary, it is Israel that can tell us what to do. It can tell us that we shall not survive if we do not cultivate and celebrate courage, if we coddle traitors and deserters, bargain with terrorists, court enemies, and scorn friends.
In Before the Sabbath (1979), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Arab (5)  |  Bargain (5)  |  Celebrate (21)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Competence (13)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Courage (82)  |  Court (35)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Finger (48)  |  Friend (180)  |  Adolf Hitler (20)  |  Israel (6)  |  Jewish (15)  |  Lift (57)  |  Million (124)  |  Order (638)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Scorn (12)  |  State (505)  |  Survive (87)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terms (184)  |  Terrorist (2)  |  Traitor (3)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wipe (6)  |  Woman (160)  |  World (1850)

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing. A day will come when science will turn upon its error and no longer hesitate to shorten our woes. A day will come when it will dare and act with certainty; when life, grown wiser, will depart silently at its hour, knowing that it has reached its term.
Our Eternity, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1913), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Animal (651)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Dare (55)  |  Death (406)  |  Error (339)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Hour (192)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pain (144)  |  Reach (286)  |  Turn (454)  |  Will (2350)

All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.
'Penetrating the Rhetoric', The Vision of the Anointed (1996), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Free (239)  |  Statement (148)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Terms (184)

All that can be said upon the number and nature of elements is, in my opinion, confined to discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature. The subject only furnishes us with indefinite problems, which may be solved in a thousand different ways, not one of which, in all probability, is consistent with nature. I shall therefore only add upon this subject, that if, by the term elements, we mean to express those simple and indivisible atoms of which matter is composed, it is extremely probable we know nothing at all about them; but, if we apply the term elements, or principles of bodies, to express our idea of the last point which analysis is capable of reaching, we must admit, as elements, all the substances into which we are capable, by any means, to reduce bodies by decomposition.
Elements of Chemistry (1790), trans. R. Kerr, Preface, xxiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apply (170)  |  Atom (381)  |  Capable (174)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Different (595)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Element (322)  |  Express (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Point (584)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Way (1214)

All the knowledge we have of nature depends upon facts; for without observations and experiments our natural philosophy would only be a science of terms and an unintelligible jargon.
First sentence of 'Preface', Course of Experimental Philosophy (1745), Vol. 1, v.
Science quotes on:  |  Depend (238)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Jargon (13)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Terms (184)  |  Unintelligible (17)

Almost all the greatest discoveries in astronomy have resulted from what we have elsewhere termed Residual Phenomena, of a qualitative or numerical kind, of such portions of the numerical or quantitative results of observation as remain outstanding and unaccounted for, after subducting and allowing for all that would result from the strict application of known principles.
Outlines of Astronomy (1876), 626.
Science quotes on:  |  Allowing (2)  |  Application (257)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Phenomena (8)  |  Portion (86)  |  Principle (530)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Remain (355)  |  Residual (5)  |  Result (700)  |  Unaccounted (2)

Although few expressions are more commonly used in writing about science than “science revolution,” there is a continuing debate as to the propriety of applying the concept and term “revolution” to scientific change. There is, furthermore, a wide difference of opinion as to what may constitute a revolution. And although almost all historians would agree that a genuine alteration of an exceptionally radical nature (the Scientific Revolution) occurred in the sciences at some time between the late fifteenth (or early sixteenth) century and the end of the seventeenth century, the question of exactly when this revolution occurred arouses as much scholarly disagreement as the cognate question of precisely what it was.
The Newtonian Revolution (1980), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  15th Century (5)  |  16th Century (3)  |  17th Century (20)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Arouse (13)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Cognate (2)  |  Concept (242)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Debate (40)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disagreement (14)  |  Early (196)  |  End (603)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Expression (181)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Historian (59)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Late (119)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occurred (2)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Propriety (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Radical (28)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wide (97)  |  Writing (192)

Ammonia is furnished from all animal substances by decomposition. The horns of cattle, especially those of deer, yield it in abundance, and it is from this circumstance that a solution of ammonia in water has been termed hartshorn.
From 'Artist and Mechanic', The artist & Tradesman’s Guide: embracing some leading facts & principles of science, and a variety of matter adapted to the wants of the artist, mechanic, manufacturer, and mercantile community (1827), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Animal (651)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Deer (11)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Horn (18)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Solution (282)  |  Substance (253)  |  Termed (2)  |  Water (503)  |  Yield (86)

Among people I have met, the few whom I would term “great” all share a kind of unquestioned, fierce dedication; an utter lack of doubt about the value of their activities (or at least an internal impulse that drives through any such angst); and above all, a capacity to work (or at least to be mentally alert for unexpected insights) at every available moment of every day of their lives.
From The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History (2000), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Alert (13)  |  Angst (2)  |  Available (80)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Dedication (12)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Drive (61)  |  Fierce (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Insight (107)  |  Internal (69)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lack (127)  |  Least (75)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Mentally (3)  |  Met (2)  |  Moment (260)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Share (82)  |  Through (846)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Utter (8)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)

An optical unit has been devised which will convey optical images along a flexible axis. The unit comprises a bundle of fibres of glass, or other transparent material, and it therefore appears appropriate to introduce the term 'fibrescope' to denote it.
Co-author with Indian-American physicist Narinder Singh Kapany..
'A Flexible Fibrescope, using Static Scanning', Nature (1954), 173, 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Author (175)  |  Glass (94)  |  Image (97)  |  Indian (32)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Material (366)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Optical (11)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Will (2350)

And we daily in our experiments electrise bodies plus or minus, as we think proper. [These terms we may use till your Philosophers give us better.] To electrise plus or minus, no more needs to be known than this, that the parts of the Tube or Sphere, that are rubb’d, do, in the Instant of Friction, attract the Electrical Fire, and therefore take it from the Thin rubbing; the same parts immediately, as the Friction upon them ceases, are disposed to give the fire they have received, to any Body that has less.
Letter 25 May 1747. Quoted in I. Bernard Cohen, Franklin and Newton: An Enquiry into Speculative Newtonian Experimental Science and Franklin’s Work in Electricity as an Example Thereof (1956), 439.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Cease (81)  |  Daily (91)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrostatics (6)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fire (203)  |  Friction (14)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Instant (46)  |  Known (453)  |  Minus (7)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Plus (43)  |  Proper (150)  |  Spark (32)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Use (771)

As a result of the phenomenally rapid change and growth of physics, the men and women who did their great work one or two generations ago may be our distant predecessors in terms of the state of the field, but they are our close neighbors in terms of time and tastes. This may be an unprecedented state of affairs among professionals; one can perhaps be forgiven if one characterizes it epigrammatically with a disastrously mixed metaphor; in the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side-by-side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
In 'On the Recent Past of Physics', American Journal of Physics (1961), 29, 807.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Field (378)  |  Generation (256)  |  Giant (73)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Professional (77)  |  Result (700)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Side (236)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Taste (93)  |  Terms (184)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unprecedented (11)  |  Work (1402)

As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries—not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.
From A Logical Point of View (1953), 44. [Note: “qua” means “in the character or role of,” thus “qua lay physicist” means “in the role of lay physicist,” or perhaps even (?) “putting on my lay physicist hat.” —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Culture (157)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Device (71)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Empiricist (3)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entity (37)  |  Epistemology (8)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Flux (21)  |  Footing (2)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Homer (11)  |  Import (5)  |  Intermediary (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myth (58)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Past (355)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Point (584)  |  Posit (2)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Situation (117)  |  Structure (365)  |  Superior (88)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tool (129)  |  Ultimately (56)

As for hailing [the new term] scientist as 'good', that was mere politeness: Faraday never used the word, describing himself as a natural philosopher to the end of his career.
Nineteenth-Century Attitudes: Men of Science (1991), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Career (86)  |  Description (89)  |  End (603)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosopher (4)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Word (650)

As physicists have arranged an extensive series of effects under the general term of Heat, so they have named another series Light, and a third they have called Electricity. We find ... that all these principles are capable of being produced through the medium of living bodies, for nearly all animals have the power of evolving heat; many insects, moreover, can voluntarily emit light; and the property of producing electricity is well evinced in the terrible shock of the electric eel, as well as in that of some other creatures. We are indeed in the habit of talking of the Electric fluid, or the Galvanic fluid, but this in reality is nothing but a licence of expression suitable to our finite and material notions.
In the Third Edition of Elements of Electro-Metallurgy: or The Art of Working in Metals by the Galvanic Fluid (1851), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Capable (174)  |  Creature (242)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Emit (15)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finding (34)  |  Finite (60)  |  Fluid (54)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heat (180)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insect (89)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Body (3)  |  Material (366)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Property (177)  |  Reality (274)  |  Series (153)  |  Shock (38)  |  Talking (76)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Through (846)

At every major step physics has required, and frequently stimulated, the introduction of new mathematical tools and concepts. Our present understanding of the laws of physics, with their extreme precision and universality, is only possible in mathematical terms.
In Book Review 'Pulling the Strings,' of Lawrence Krauss's Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Lure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond in Nature (22 Dec 2005), 438, 1081.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Law (913)  |  Major (88)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  New (1273)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precision (72)  |  Present (630)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Step (234)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  Terms (184)  |  Tool (129)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universality (22)

At the present time all property is personal; the man owns his own ponies and other belongings he has personally acquired; the woman owns her horses, dogs, and all the lodge equipments; children own their own articles; and parents do not control the possessions of their children. There is no family property as we use the term. A wife is as independent as the most independent man in our midst. If she chooses to give away or sell all of her property, there is no one to gainsay her.
Speech on 'The Legal Conditions of Indian Women', delivered to Evening Session (Thur 29 Mar 1888), collected in Report of the International Council of Women: Assembled by the National Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D.C., U.S. of America, March 25 to April 1, 1888 (1888), Vol. 1, 239-240.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Article (22)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Choose (116)  |  Control (182)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dog (70)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Family (101)  |  Give (208)  |  Horse (78)  |  Independent (74)  |  Lodge (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pony (2)  |  Possession (68)  |  Present (630)  |  Property (177)  |  Sell (15)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Wife (41)  |  Woman (160)

Available energy is energy which we can direct into any desired channel. Dissipated energy is energy which we cannot lay hold of and direct at pleasure, such as the energy of the confused agitation of molecules which we call heat. Now, confusion, like the correlative term order, is not a property of material things in themselves, but only in relation to the mind which perceives them. A memorandum-book does not, provided it is neatly written, appear confused to an illiterate person, or to the owner who understands it thoroughly, but to any other person able to read it appears to be inextricably confused. Similarly the notion of dissipated energy could not occur to a being who could not turn any of the energies of nature to his own account, or to one who could trace the motion of every molecule and seize it at the right moment. It is only to a being in the intermediate stage, who can lay hold of some forms of energy while others elude his grasp, that energy appears to be passing inevitably from the available to the dissipated state.
'Diffusion', Encyclopaedia Britannica (1878). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 646.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Agitation (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Direct (228)  |  Dissipate (8)  |  Elude (11)  |  Energy (373)  |  Form (976)  |  Heat (180)  |  Illiterate (6)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Material (366)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Moment (260)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passing (76)  |  Person (366)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Property (177)  |  Read (308)  |  Right (473)  |  Stage (152)  |  State (505)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Trace (109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understand (648)

Belief cannot be reckoned with in terms of science, for science and faith are mutually exclusive.
In Fielding Hudson Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine (1966), 576.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Faith (209)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Terms (184)

Bernard Bolzano dispelled the clouds that throughout all the foregone centuries had enveloped the notion of Infinitude in darkness, completely sheared the great term of its vagueness without shearing it of its strength, and thus rendered it forever available for the purposes of logical discourse.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Century (319)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completely (137)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Discourse (19)  |  Dispel (5)  |  Envelop (5)  |  Forego (4)  |  Forever (111)  |  Great (1610)  |  Infinitude (3)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Notion (120)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Render (96)  |  Shear (2)  |  Strength (139)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Vagueness (15)

Biology occupies a position among the sciences both marginal and central. Marginal because, the living world, constituting only a tiny and very “special” part of the universe, it does not seem likely that the study of living beings will ever uncover general laws applicable outside the biosphere. But if the ultimate aim of the whole of science is indeed, as I believe, to clarify man's relationship to the universe, then biology must be accorded a central position, since of all the disciplines it is the one that endeavours to go most directly to the heart of the problems that must be resolved before that of “human nature” can even be framed in other than metaphysical terms.
In Jacques Monod and Austryn Wainhouse (trans.), Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (1971), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Biosphere (14)  |  Both (496)  |  Central (81)  |  Clarify (3)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  General (521)  |  Heart (243)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marginal (3)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Problem (731)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Special (188)  |  Study (701)  |  Terms (184)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

But I must confess I am jealous of the term atom; for though it is very easy to talk of atoms, it is very difficult to form a clear idea of their nature, especially when compounded bodies are under consideration.
'On the Absolute Quantity of Electricity Associated with the Particles or Atoms of Matter,' (31 Dec 1833), published in Philosophical Transactions (Jan 1834) as part of Series VII. Collected in Experimental Researches in Electricity: Reprinted from the Philosophical Transactions of 1831-1838 (1839), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Compound (117)  |  Confess (42)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easy (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Idea (881)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)

But it is precisely mathematics, and the pure science generally, from which the general educated public and independent students have been debarred, and into which they have only rarely attained more than a very meagre insight. The reason of this is twofold. In the first place, the ascendant and consecutive character of mathematical knowledge renders its results absolutely insusceptible of presentation to persons who are unacquainted with what has gone before, and so necessitates on the part of its devotees a thorough and patient exploration of the field from the very beginning, as distinguished from those sciences which may, so to speak, be begun at the end, and which are consequently cultivated with the greatest zeal. The second reason is that, partly through the exigencies of academic instruction, but mainly through the martinet traditions of antiquity and the influence of mediaeval logic-mongers, the great bulk of the elementary text-books of mathematics have unconsciously assumed a very repellant form,—something similar to what is termed in the theory of protective mimicry in biology “the terrifying form.” And it is mainly to this formidableness and touch-me-not character of exterior, concealing withal a harmless body, that the undue neglect of typical mathematical studies is to be attributed.
In Editor’s Preface to Augustus De Morgan and Thomas J. McCormack (ed.), Elementary Illustrations of the Differential and Integral Calculus (1899), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Academic (20)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Ascendant (2)  |  Assume (43)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Biology (232)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Character (259)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Consecutive (2)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Debar (2)  |  Devotee (7)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Educated (12)  |  Elementary (98)  |  End (603)  |  Exigency (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Exterior (7)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Formidable (8)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Independent (74)  |  Influence (231)  |  Insight (107)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meager (2)  |  Medieval (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Part (235)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Protective (5)  |  Public (100)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Render (96)  |  Repellent (4)  |  Result (700)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Terrify (12)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Through (846)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Typical (16)  |  Unacquainted (3)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Undue (4)  |  Zeal (12)

But regular biology, as an "ology," has to be "scientific," and this means in practice that it has to be made dull.... Everything has to be expressed in utterly impersonal terms.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 108-10.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Dull (58)  |  Everything (489)  |  Express (192)  |  Impersonal (5)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Practice (212)  |  Regular (48)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Terms (184)

But the idea that any of the lower animals have been concerned in any way with the origin of man—is not this degrading? Degrading is a term, expressive of a notion of the human mind, and the human mind is liable to prejudices which prevent its notions from being invariably correct. Were we acquainted for the first time with the circumstances attending the production of an individual of our race, we might equally think them degrading, and be eager to deny them, and exclude them from the admitted truths of nature.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deny (71)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exclude (8)  |  Expressive (6)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Lower (11)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Man (9)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Production (190)  |  Race (278)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)

But the nature of our civilized minds is so detached from the senses, even in the vulgar, by abstractions corresponding to all the abstract terms our languages abound in, and so refined by the art of writing, and as it were spiritualized by the use of numbers, because even the vulgar know how to count and reckon, that it is naturally beyond our power to form the vast image of this mistress called ‘Sympathetic Nature.’
The New Science, bk. 2, para. 378 (1744, trans. 1984).
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Art (680)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Count (107)  |  Detach (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Image (97)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistress (7)  |  Naturally (11)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Power (771)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Refine (8)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sympathetic (10)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

Cauchy is mad, and there is no way of being on good terms with him, although at present he is the only man who knows how mathematics should be treated. What he does is excellent, but very confused…
In Oeuvres (1826), Vol. 2, 259. As quoted and cited in Ernst Hairer and Gerhard Wanner Analysis by Its History (2008), 188. From the original French, “Cauchy est fou, et avec lui il n’y a pas moyen de s’entendre, bien que pour le moment il soit celui qui sait comment les mathématiques doivent être traitées. Ce qu’il fait est excellent, mais très brouillé….”
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (11)  |  Confused (13)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Good (906)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Present (630)  |  Terms (184)  |  Treat (38)  |  Way (1214)

Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it.
Attributed. As quoted in American Journal of Physics (1946),14 248. Also in Robert L. Weber, More Random Walks in Science: An Anthology (1982), 64, without citation. Contact Webmaster if you know any primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Invasion (9)  |  Mess (14)  |  Messy (6)  |  Permission (7)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Reason (766)  |  Why (491)

Chemistry is an art that has furnished the world with a great number of useful facts, and has thereby contributed to the improvement of many arts; but these facts lie scattered in many different books, involved in obscure terms, mixed with many falsehoods, and joined to a great deal of false philosophy; so that it is not great wonder that chemistry has not been so much studied as might have been expected with regard to so useful a branch of knowledge, and that many professors are themselves but very superficially acquainted with it. But it was particularly to be expected, that, since it has been taught in universities, the difficulties in this study should have been in some measure removed, that the art should have been put into form, and a system of it attempted—the scattered facts collected and arranged in a proper order. But this has not yet been done; chemistry has not yet been taught but upon a very narrow plan. The teachers of it have still confined themselves to the purposes of pharmacy and medicine, and that comprehends a small branch of chemistry; and even that, by being a single branch, could not by itself be tolerably explained.
John Thomson, An Account of the Life, Lectures and Writings of William Cullen, M.D. (1832), Vol. 1, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Deal (192)  |  Different (595)  |  Expect (203)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Great (1610)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Involved (90)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Measure (241)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Number (710)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Order (638)  |  Pharmacy (4)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plan (122)  |  Professor (133)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Regard (312)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  System (545)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

Common sense … may be thought of as a series of concepts and conceptual schemes which have proved highly satisfactory for the practical uses of mankind. Some of those concepts and conceptual schemes were carried over into science with only a little pruning and whittling and for a long time proved useful. As the recent revolutions in physics indicate, however, many errors can be made by failure to examine carefully just how common sense ideas should be defined in terms of what the experimenter plans to do.
In Science and Common Sense (1951), 32-33.
Science quotes on:  |  Careful (28)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Concept (242)  |  Define (53)  |  Do (1905)  |  Error (339)  |  Examine (84)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Failure (176)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plan (122)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prune (7)  |  Pruning (7)  |  Recent (78)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Satisfactory (19)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)

Compounds of gaseous substances with each other are always formed in very simple ratios, so that representing one of the terms by unity, the other is 1, 2, or at most 3 ... The apparent contraction of volume suffered by gas on combination is also very simply related to the volume of one of them.
Mémoires de la Société d' Arcueil, 1809, 2, 233-4. Trans. Foundations of the Molecular Theory, Alembic Club Reprint, no. 4 (1950), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compound (117)  |  Contraction (18)  |  Form (976)  |  Gas (89)  |  Law (913)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Simple (426)  |  Substance (253)  |  Terms (184)  |  Unity (81)

Conflicts between men are almost always a matter of frontiers. The astronauts now have destroyed what looked like an unsurmountable frontier. They have shown us that we cannot any longer think in limited terms. There are no limitations left. We can think in terms of the universe now.
In 'Reactions to Man’s Landing on the Moon Show Broad Variations in Opinions', The New York Times (21 Jul 1969), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Insurmountable (3)  |  Leave (138)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Limited (102)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universe (900)

Darwin grasped the philosophical bleakness with his characteristic courage. He argued that hope and morality cannot, and should not, be passively read in the construction of nature. Aesthetic and moral truths, as human concepts, must be shaped in human terms, not ‘discovered’ in nature. We must formulate these answers for ourselves and then approach nature as a partner who can answer other kinds of questions for us–questions about the factual state of the universe, not about the meaning of human life. If we grant nature the independence of her own domain–her answers unframed in human terms–then we can grasp her exquisite beauty in a free and humble way. For then we become liberated to approach nature without the burden of an inappropriate and impossible quest for moral messages to assuage our hopes and fears. We can pay our proper respect to nature’s independence and read her own ways as beauty or inspiration in our different terms.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approach (112)  |  Argue (25)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Bleakness (2)  |  Burden (30)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Concept (242)  |  Construction (114)  |  Courage (82)  |  Darwin (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Domain (72)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Factual (8)  |  Fear (212)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Free (239)  |  Grant (76)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Humble (54)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inappropriate (5)  |  Independence (37)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Kind (564)  |  Liberate (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Message (53)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Partner (5)  |  Passively (3)  |  Pay (45)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Proper (150)  |  Quest (39)  |  Question (649)  |  Read (308)  |  Respect (212)  |  Shape (77)  |  State (505)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

Democracy might therefore almost in a sense be termed that practice of which science is the theory.
In The Grand Titration (1969).
Science quotes on:  |  Democracy (36)  |  Practice (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Theory (1015)

Despite the high long-term probability of extinction, every organism alive today, including every person reading this paper, is a link in an unbroken chain of parent-offspring relationships that extends back unbroken to the beginning of life on earth. Every living organism is a part of an enormously long success story—each of its direct ancestors has been sufficiently well adapted to its physical and biological environments to allow it to mature and reproduce successfully. Viewed thus, adaptation is not a trivial facet of natural history, but a biological attribute so central as to be inseparable from life itself.
In 'Integrative Biology: An Organismic Biologist’s Point of View', Integrative and Comparative Biology (2005), 45, 330.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Alive (97)  |  Allow (51)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Back (395)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Biological (137)  |  Central (81)  |  Chain (51)  |  Despite (7)  |  Direct (228)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enormously (4)  |  Environment (239)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Facet (9)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Include (93)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life On Earth (16)  |  Link (48)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Mature (17)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Organism (231)  |  Paper (192)  |  Parent (80)  |  Part (235)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Probability (135)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Story (122)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Sufficiently (9)  |  Today (321)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  View (496)

Different kinds of animals and plants live together in different places: camels in deserts, whales in the seas, gorillas in tropical forests. The totality of this diversity from the genetic level, through organisms to ecosystems and landscapes is termed collectively biological diversity.
From Reith Lecture, 'Biodiversity', on BBC Radio 4 (19 Apr 2000). Transcript and audio on BBC website.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biological Diversity (5)  |  Camel (12)  |  Desert (59)  |  Different (595)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  Forest (161)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Kind (564)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Live (650)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Organism (231)  |  Place (192)  |  Plant (320)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Sea (326)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Totality (17)  |  Whale (45)

Divers of Hermetic Books have such involv’d Obscuritys that they may justly be compar’d to Riddles written in Cyphers. For after a Man has surmounted the difficulty of decyphering the Words & Terms, he finds a new & greater difficulty to discover ye meaning of the seemingly plain Expression.
Fragment In Boyle papers. Cited by Lawrence Principe, 'Boyle's Alchemical Pursuits', In M. Hunter (ed.), Robert Boyle Reconsidered (1994), 95
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Book (413)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Expression (181)  |  Find (1014)  |  Greater (288)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Terms (184)  |  Word (650)

DOCTOR. Always preceded by “The good”. Among men, in familiar conversation, “Oh! balls, doctor!” Is a wizard when he enjoys your confidence, a jack-ass when you're no longer on terms. All are materialists: “you can't probe for faith with a scalpel.”
The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas (1881), trans. Jaques Barzun (1968), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Faith (209)  |  Good (906)  |  Probe (12)  |  Quip (81)  |  Scalpel (4)  |  Terms (184)

Einstein ... always spoke to me of Rutherford in the highest terms, calling him a second Newton.
Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizman (1949), 118. Quoted in A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 65-66.
Science quotes on:  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Terms (184)

Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention. To embody an invention the engineer must put his idea in concrete terms, and design something that people can use. That something can be a device, a gadget, a material, a method, a computing program, an innovative experiment, a new solution to a problem, or an improvement on what is existing. Since a design has to be concrete, it must have its geometry, dimensions, and characteristic numbers. Almost all engineers working on new designs find that they do not have all the needed information. Most often, they are limited by insufficient scientific knowledge. Thus they study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and mechanics. Often they have to add to the sciences relevant to their profession. Thus engineering sciences are born.
Y.C. Fung and P. Tong, Classical and Computational Solid Mechanics (2001), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Design (203)  |  Device (71)  |  Different (595)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Information (173)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Profession (108)  |  Science And Engineering (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Stress (22)  |  Study (701)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)

Equations are Expressions of Arithmetical Computation, and properly have no place in Geometry, except as far as Quantities truly Geometrical (that is, Lines, Surfaces, Solids, and Proportions) may be said to be some equal to others. Multiplications, Divisions, and such sort of Computations, are newly received into Geometry, and that unwarily, and contrary to the first Design of this Science. For whosoever considers the Construction of a Problem by a right Line and a Circle, found out by the first Geometricians, will easily perceive that Geometry was invented that we might expeditiously avoid, by drawing Lines, the Tediousness of Computation. Therefore these two Sciences ought not to be confounded. The Ancients did so industriously distinguish them from one another, that they never introduced Arithmetical Terms into Geometry. And the Moderns, by confounding both, have lost the Simplicity in which all the Elegance of Geometry consists. Wherefore that is Arithmetically more simple which is determined by the more simple Equation, but that is Geometrically more simple which is determined by the more simple drawing of Lines; and in Geometry, that ought to be reckoned best which is geometrically most simple.
In 'On the Linear Construction of Equations', Universal Arithmetic (1769), Vol. 2, 470.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Best (467)  |  Both (496)  |  Circle (117)  |  Computation (28)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confounding (8)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consist (223)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Design (203)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Division (67)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equation (138)  |  Expression (181)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometrician (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Industrious (12)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Invent (57)  |  Line (100)  |  Lose (165)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Place (192)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Right (473)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sort (50)  |  Surface (223)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truly (118)  |  Two (936)  |  Wherefore (2)  |  Will (2350)

Every complete set of chromosomes contains the full code; so there are, as a rule, two copies of the latter in the fertilized egg cell, which forms the earliest stage of the future individual. In calling the structure of the chromosome fibres a code-script we mean that the all-penetrating mind, once conceived by Laplace, to which every causal connection lay immediately open, could tell from their structure whether the egg would develop, under suitable conditions, into a black cock or into a speckled hen, into a fly or a maize plant, a rhododendron, a beetle, a mouse or a woman. To which we may add, that the appearances of the egg cells are very often remarkably similar; and even when they are not, as in the case of the comparatively gigantic eggs of birds and reptiles, the difference is not so much in the relevant structures as in the nutritive material which in these cases is added for obvious reasons.
But the term code-script is, of course, too narrow. The chromosome structures are at the same time instrumental in bringing about the development they foreshadow. They are law-code and executive power?or, to use another simile, they are architect's plan and builder’s craft-in one.
In What is Life? : The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell (1944), 20-21.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Architect (32)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Bird (163)  |  Builder (16)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Cock (6)  |  Code (31)  |  Complete (209)  |  Condition (362)  |  Connection (171)  |  Copy (34)  |  Course (413)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Egg (71)  |  Executive (3)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foreshadow (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Hen (9)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instrumental (5)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Law (913)  |  Maize (4)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Open (277)  |  Plan (122)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Rule (307)  |  Set (400)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Simile (8)  |  Speckled (3)  |  Stage (152)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Woman (160)

Every definition implies an axiom, since it asserts the existence of the object defined. The definition then will not be justified, from the purely logical point of view, until we have ‘proved’ that it involves no contradiction either in its terms or with the truths previously admitted.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Assert (69)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Define (53)  |  Definition (238)  |  Existence (481)  |  Imply (20)  |  Involve (93)  |  Justify (26)  |  Logical (57)  |  Object (438)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Previously (12)  |  Prove (261)  |  Purely (111)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truth (1109)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

Everybody using C is a dangerous thing. We have other languages that don’t have buffer overflows. But what is the longer-term cost to us as an enterprise in increased vulnerability, increased need for add-on security services or whatever else is involved? Those kinds of questions don’t get asked often enough.
As quoted in magazine article, an interview by John McCormick, 'Computer Security as a Business Enabler', Baseline (7 Jul 2007).
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Buffer (2)  |  C (2)  |  Cost (94)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Increase (225)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Need (320)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overflow (10)  |  Question (649)  |  Security (51)  |  Service (110)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vulnerability (5)  |  Whatever (234)

Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.
The Blind Watchmaker (1996), 50.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Distance (171)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Final (121)  |  Goal (155)  |  Human (1512)  |  Long (778)  |  Notion (120)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Selection (130)  |  Species (435)  |  Target (13)

Evolution is an obstacle course not a freeway; the correct analogue for long-term success is a distant punt receiver evading legions of would-be tacklers in an oddly zigzagged path toward a goal, not a horse thundering down the flat.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Analogue (7)  |  Correct (95)  |  Course (413)  |  Distant (33)  |  Down (455)  |  Evade (4)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Flat (34)  |  Goal (155)  |  Horse (78)  |  Legion (4)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Oddly (3)  |  Path (159)  |  Receiver (5)  |  Success (327)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Toward (45)  |  Would-Be (2)  |  Zigzag (3)

Experiments on ornamental plants undertaken in previous years had proven that, as a rule, hybrids do not represent the form exactly intermediate between the parental strains. Although the intermediate form of some of the more striking traits, such as those relating to shape and size of leaves, pubescence of individual parts, and so forth, is indeed nearly always seen, in other cases one of the two parental traits is so preponderant that it is difficult or quite impossible, to detect the other in the hybrid. The same is true for Pisum hybrids. Each of the seven hybrid traits either resembles so closely one of the two parental traits that the other escapes detection, or is so similar to it that no certain distinction can be made. This is of great importance to the definition and classification of the forms in which the offspring of hybrids appear. In the following discussion those traits that pass into hybrid association entirely or almost entirely unchanged, thus themselves representing the traits of the hybrid, are termed dominating and those that become latent in the association, recessive. The word 'recessive' was chosen because the traits so designated recede or disappear entirely in the hybrids, but reappear unchanged in their progeny, as will be demonstrated later.
'Experiments on Plant Hybrids' (1865). In Curt Stern and Eva R. Sherwood (eds.), The Origin of Genetics: A Mendel Source Book (1966), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Association (49)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Classification (102)  |  Definition (238)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Detect (45)  |  Detection (19)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dominant (26)  |  Escape (85)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Latent (13)  |  Leaf (73)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pass (241)  |  Plant (320)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Recede (11)  |  Recessive (6)  |  Represent (157)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Rule (307)  |  Shape (77)  |  Size (62)  |  Strain (13)  |  Striking (48)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Trait (23)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

Extrasensory perception is a scientifically inept term. By suggesting that forms of human perception exist beyond the senses, it prejudges the question.
In Margaret Mead and Rhoda Bubendey Métraux (ed.), Margaret Mead, Some Personal Views (1979), 220.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extrasensory Perception (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inept (4)  |  Perception (97)  |  Prejudge (2)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Suggest (38)

Facts were never pleasing to him. He acquired them with reluctance and got rid of them with relief. He was never on terms with them until he had stood them on their heads.
The Greenwood Hat (1937), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Head (87)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Relief (30)  |  Reluctance (6)  |  Rid (14)  |  Stand (284)  |  Terms (184)

Fertilization of mammalian eggs is followed by successive cell divisions and progressive differentiation, first into the early embryo and subsequently into all of the cell types that make up the adult animal. Transfer of a single nucleus at a specific stage of development, to an enucleated unfertilized egg, provided an opportunity to investigate whether cellular differentiation to that stage involved irreversible genetic modification. The first offspring to develop from a differentiated cell were born after nuclear transfer from an embryo-derived cell line that had been induced to became quiescent. Using the same procedure, we now report the birth of live lambs from three new cell populations established from adult mammary gland, fetus and embryo. The fact that a lamb was derived from an adult cell confirms that differentiation of that cell did not involve the irreversible modification of genetic material required far development to term. The birth of lambs from differentiated fetal and adult cells also reinforces previous speculation that by inducing donor cells to became quiescent it will be possible to obtain normal development from a wide variety of differentiated cells.
[Co-author of paper announcing the cloned sheep, ‘Dolly’.]
In I. Wilmut, A. E. Schnieke, J. McWhir, et al., 'Viable Offspring Derived from Petal and Adult Mammalian Cells', Nature (1997), 385, 810.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Author (175)  |  Birth (154)  |  Cell Division (6)  |  Clone (8)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Division (67)  |  Dolly (2)  |  Early (196)  |  Egg (71)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Gland (14)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Lamb (6)  |  Live (650)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Material (366)  |  Modification (57)  |  New (1273)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Paper (192)  |  Population (115)  |  Possible (560)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Reinforce (5)  |  Required (108)  |  Single (365)  |  Specific (98)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Stage (152)  |  Successive (73)  |  Transfer (21)  |  Type (171)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)

For FRICTION is inevitable because the Universe is FULL of God's works.
For the PERPETUAL MOTION is in all works of Almighty GOD.
For it is not so in the engines of man, which are made of dead materials, neither indeed can be.
For the Moment of bodies, as it is used, is a false term—bless God ye Speakers on the Fifth of November.
For Time and Weight are by their several estimates.
For I bless GOD in the discovery of the LONGITUDE direct by the means of GLADWICK.
For the motion of the PENDULUM is the longest in that it parries resistance.
For the WEDDING GARMENTS of all men are prepared in the SUN against the day of acceptation.
For the wedding Garments of all women are prepared in the MOON against the day of their purification.
For CHASTITY is the key of knowledge as in Esdras, Sir Isaac Newton & now, God be praised, in me.
For Newton nevertheless is more of error than of the truth, but I am of the WORD of GOD.
From 'Jubilate Agno' (c.1758-1763), in N. Callan (ed.), The Collected Poems of Christopher Smart (1949), Vol. 1, 276.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Against (332)  |  Almighty (23)  |  Bless (25)  |  Chastity (5)  |  Dead (65)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Engine (99)  |  Error (339)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Friction (14)  |  Garment (13)  |  God (776)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Key (56)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moment (260)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Praise (28)  |  Purification (10)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wedding (7)  |  Weight (140)  |  Woman (160)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

For terrestrial vertebrates, the climate in the usual meteorological sense of the term would appear to be a reasonable approximation of the conditions of temperature, humidity, radiation, and air movement in which terrestrial vertebrates live. But, in fact, it would be difficult to find any other lay assumption about ecology and natural history which has less general validity. … Most vertebrates are much smaller than man and his domestic animals, and the universe of these small creatures is one of cracks and crevices, holes in logs, dense underbrush, tunnels, and nests—a world where distances are measured in yards rather than miles and where the difference between sunshine and shadow may be the difference between life and death. Actually, climate in the usual sense of the term is little more than a crude index to the physical conditions in which most terrestrial animals live.
From 'Interaction of physiology and behavior under natural conditions', collected in R.I. Bowman (ed.), The Galapagos (1966), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appear (122)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Climate (102)  |  Condition (362)  |  Crack (15)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crude (32)  |  Death (406)  |  Dense (5)  |  Difference (355)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distance (171)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Hole (17)  |  Humidity (3)  |  Index (5)  |  Less (105)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Log (7)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mile (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nest (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Small (489)  |  Sunshine (12)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Underbrush (2)  |  Universe (900)  |  Validity (50)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  World (1850)  |  Yard (10)

For the metaphysical term 'will' we may in these instances safely substitute the chemical term 'photochemical action of light.'
The Mechanistic Conception of Life (1912), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Light (635)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Will (2350)

Forests … are in fact the world’s air-conditioning system—the very lungs of the planet—and help to store the largest body of freshwater on the planet … essential to produce food for our planet’s growing population. The rainforests of the world also provide the livelihoods of more than a billion of the poorest people on this Earth… In simple terms, the rainforests, which encircle the world, are our very life-support system—and we are on the verge of switching it off.
Presidential Lecture (3 Nov 2008) at the Presidential Palace, Jakarta, Indonesia. On the Prince of Wales website.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Billion (104)  |  Body (557)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Food (213)  |  Forest (161)  |  Freshwater (3)  |  Growing (99)  |  Largest (39)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Support (2)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Lung (37)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Population (115)  |  Population Growth (9)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Simple (426)  |  Storage (6)  |  Store (49)  |  Support (151)  |  Switch (10)  |  System (545)  |  Terms (184)  |  Verge (10)  |  World (1850)

From the time of Aristotle it had been said that man is a social animal: that human beings naturally form communities. I couldn’t accept it. The whole of history and pre-history is against it. The two dreadful world wars we have recently been through, and the gearing of our entire economy today for defensive war belie it. Man's loathsome cruelty to man is his most outstanding characteristic; it is explicable only in terms of his carnivorous and cannibalistic origin. Robert Hartmann pointed out that both rude and civilised peoples show unspeakable cruelty to one another. We call it inhuman cruelty; but these dreadful things are unhappily truly human, because there is nothing like them in the animal world. A lion or tiger kills to eat, but the indiscriminate slaughter and calculated cruelty of human beings is quite unexampled in nature, especially among the apes. They display no hostility to man or other animals unless attacked. Even then their first reaction is to run away.
In Africa's Place In the Emergence of Civilisation (1959), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Against (332)  |  Animal (651)  |  Ape (54)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Attack (86)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belie (3)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Carnivorous (7)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Display (59)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  Eat (108)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Robert Hartmann (2)  |  History (716)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Kill (100)  |  Lion (23)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Run (158)  |  Show (353)  |  Social (261)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Truly (118)  |  Two (936)  |  War (233)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Further study of the division phenomena requires a brief discussion of the material which thus far I have called the stainable substance of the nucleus. Since the term nuclear substance could easily result in misinterpretation..., I shall coin the term chromatin for the time being. This does not indicate that this substance must be a chemical compound of a definite composition, remaining the same in all nuclei. Although this may be the case, we simply do not know enough about the nuclear substances to make such an assumption. Therefore, we will designate as chromatin that substance, in the nucleus, which upon treatment with dyes known as nuclear stains does absorb the dye. From my description of the results of staining resting and dividing cells... it follows that the chromatin is distributed throughout the whole resting nucleus, mostly in the nucleoli, the network, and the membrane, but also in the ground-substance. In nuclear division it accumulates exclusively in the thread figures. The term achromatin suggests itself automatically for the unstainable substance of the nucleus. The terms chromatic and achromatic which will be used henceforth are thus explained.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brief (37)  |  Call (781)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chromatic (4)  |  Chromatin (4)  |  Composition (86)  |  Compound (117)  |  Definite (114)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dye (10)  |  Enough (341)  |  Explain (334)  |  Figure (162)  |  Follow (389)  |  Ground (222)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Material (366)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Must (1525)  |  Network (21)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thread (36)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Geologists have usually had recourse for the explanation of these changes to the supposition of sundry violent and extraordinary catastrophes, cataclysms, or general revolutions having occurred in the physical state of the earth's surface.
As the idea imparted by the term Cataclysm, Catastrophe, or Revolution, is extremely vague, and may comprehend any thing you choose to imagine, it answers for the time very well as an explanation; that is, it stops further inquiry. But it also has had the disadvantage of effectually stopping the advance of science, by involving it in obscurity and confusion.
Considerations on Volcanoes (1825), iv.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Answer (389)  |  Cataclysm (2)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Change (639)  |  Choose (116)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Disadvantage (10)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  General (521)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impart (24)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Physical (518)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Revolution (133)  |  State (505)  |  Stop (89)  |  Sundry (4)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Usually (176)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vagueness (15)  |  Violence (37)

Geology got into the hands of the theoreticians who were conditioned by the social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field. … We have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed “catastrophic” processes. However, it seems to me that the stratigraphical record is full of examples of processes that are far from “normal” in the usual sense of the word. In particular we must conclude that sedimentation in the past has often been very rapid indeed and very spasmodic. This may be called the “Phenomenon of the Catastrophic Nature of the Stratigraphic Record.”
In The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (3rd ed., 1993), 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoidance (11)  |  Call (781)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conditioning (3)  |  Example (98)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Field (378)  |  Geology (240)  |  Hand (149)  |  History (716)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involving (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Normal (29)  |  Observation (593)  |  Often (109)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Process (439)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Record (161)  |  Sedimentation (3)  |  Sense (785)  |  Social (261)  |  Spasmodic (2)  |  Stratigraphy (7)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Word (650)

Giordano Bruno was the martyr; though the cause for which he suffered was not that of science, but that of free imaginative speculation. His death in the year 1600 ushered in the first century of modern science in the strict sense of the term.
In 'The Origins of Modern Science', Science and the Modern World (1926, 2011), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Giordano Bruno (8)  |  Cause (561)  |  Century (319)  |  Death (406)  |  First (1302)  |  Free (239)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Martyr (3)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Year (963)

Given any domain of thought in which the fundamental objective is a knowledge that transcends mere induction or mere empiricism, it seems quite inevitable that its processes should be made to conform closely to the pattern of a system free of ambiguous terms, symbols, operations, deductions; a system whose implications and assumptions are unique and consistent; a system whose logic confounds not the necessary with the sufficient where these are distinct; a system whose materials are abstract elements interpretable as reality or unreality in any forms whatsoever provided only that these forms mirror a thought that is pure. To such a system is universally given the name MATHEMATICS.
In 'Mathematics', National Mathematics Magazine (Nov 1937), 12, No. 2, 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Ambiguous (14)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Conform (15)  |  Confound (21)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Domain (72)  |  Element (322)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Implication (25)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Name (359)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Objective (96)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Process (439)  |  Provide (79)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reality (274)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Symbol (100)  |  System (545)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Unique (72)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unreality (3)  |  Whatsoever (41)

Groups do not have experiences except insofar as all their members do. And there are no experiences... that all the members of a scientific community must share in the course of a [scientific] revolution. Revolutions should be described not in terms of group experience but in terms of the varied experiences of individual group members. Indeed, that variety itself turns out to play an essential role in the evolution of scientific knowledge.
Thomas S. Kuhn's Foreword to Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: Thomas S Kuhn's Philosophy of Science (1993), xiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Community (111)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Group (83)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Must (1525)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Role (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Share (82)  |  Terms (184)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variety (138)

Heart and Brain are the two lords of life. In the metaphors of ordinary speech and in the stricter language of science, we use these terms to indicate two central powers, from which all motives radiate, to which all influences converge.
From 'The Principles of Success in Literature', The Fortnightly (1865), 1, 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Central (81)  |  Converge (10)  |  Convergence (4)  |  Heart (243)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Influence (231)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lord (97)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Motive (62)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Power (771)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Speech (66)  |  Strictness (2)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)

Heraldry has been contemptuously termed “the science of fools with long memories.”
The Pursuivant of Arms: Or, Heraldry Founded Upon Facts (1873), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Fool (121)  |  Long (778)  |  Memory (144)

History, human or geological, represents our hypothesis, couched in terms of past events, devised to explain our present-day observations.
'Critique of the Principle of Uniformity', in C. C. Albritton (ed.), Uniformity and Simplicity (1967), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Event (222)  |  Explain (334)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Observation (593)  |  Past (355)  |  Present (630)  |  Represent (157)  |  Terms (184)

Hitherto, no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed, or the direct intervention of the Supreme Cause, must simply be considered as an avowal that we deem the question to lie beyond the domain of science.
The Antiquity of Man (1863), 421.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Cause (561)  |  Consider (428)  |  Creation (350)  |  Direct (228)  |  Domain (72)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Lie (370)  |  Must (1525)  |  Question (649)  |  Rival (20)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Transmutation (24)

How would we express in terms of the statistical theory the marvellous faculty of a living organism, by which it delays the decay into thermodynamical equilibrium (death)? … It feeds upon negative entropy … Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness (= fairly low level of entropy) really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment.
In 'Organization Maintained by Extracting “Order” from the Environment', What is Life? : The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell (1944), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Consist (223)  |  Death (406)  |  Decay (59)  |  Delay (21)  |  Device (71)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Environment (239)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Express (192)  |  High (370)  |  Level (69)  |  Living (492)  |  Low (86)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Negative (66)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Organism (231)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Suck (8)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)

I am afraid that education is conceived more in terms of indoctrination by most school officials than in terms of enlightenment.
As quoted, without citation, in Ronald William Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russell (1976), 423.
Science quotes on:  |  Education (423)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  Indoctrination (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Official (8)  |  School (227)  |  Terms (184)

I am almost inclined to coin a word and call the appearance fluorescence, from fluor-spar, as the analogous term opalescence is derived from the name of a mineral.
Footnote in 'On The Change of Refrangibility of Light', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1852), 142, 479. From the mineral fluor-spar, Humphry Davy named fluorine. The mineral, now called fluorite (calcium fluorite), was named was by Georg Agricola in 1546. The German flusse, flow, was applied because it melts easily, and is now important as a flux.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Call (781)  |  Fluorescence (3)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Name (359)  |  Word (650)

I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source. I take half-matured schemes for mechanical development and make them practical. I am a sort of middleman between the long-haired and impractical inventor and the hard-headed businessman who measures all things in terms of dollars and cents. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Business (156)  |  Businessman (4)  |  Cent (5)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Development (441)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Give (208)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard-Headed (2)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impractical (3)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Long (778)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Middleman (2)  |  Misdirect (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principal (69)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Sort (50)  |  Source (101)  |  Sponge (9)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Value (393)

I am sorry that the distinguished leader of the Republican Party in the House states that he is not versed in botany and publicly admits that he does not know anything of these terms or what it is all about; but, Mr. Chairman, it is indeed a sad day for the people of this country when we must close the doors of the laboratories doing research work for the people of the United States.
Speaking (28 Dec 1932) as a member of the 72nd Congress, early in the Great Depression, in opposition to an attempt to eliminate a small amount from the agricultural appropriation bill. As quoted in 'Mayor-Elect La Guardia on Research', Science (1933), New Series, 78, No. 2031, 511.
Science quotes on:  |  Botany (63)  |  Close (77)  |  Congress (20)  |  Country (269)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Doing (277)  |  Door (94)  |  House (143)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Leader (51)  |  Must (1525)  |  People (1031)  |  Research (753)  |  Sorry (31)  |  State (505)  |  Terms (184)  |  United States (31)  |  Work (1402)

I believe that the present laws of physics are at least incomplete without a translation into terms of mental phenomena.
In 'Physics and the Explanation of Life', Foundations of Physics 1970, I, 35-45.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Law (913)  |  Mental (179)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Present (630)  |  Terms (184)  |  Translation (21)

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)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  Start (237)  |  Stop (89)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subsequently (2)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Synopsis (2)  |  Talk (108)  |  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 can understand your aversion to the use of the term ‘religion’ to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza ... I have not found a better expression than ‘religious’ for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Aversion (9)  |  Better (493)  |  Certain (557)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Describe (132)  |  Emotional (17)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extent (142)  |  Find (1014)  |  Human (1512)  |  Least (75)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Show (353)  |  Spinoza (11)  |  Trust (72)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)

I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid—a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry—Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity … The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being “formless,” to investigate the morphology of the “amorphous.”
Cited as from Fractals: Form, Chance, and Dimension (1977), by J.W. Cannon, in review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982) in The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 1984), 91, No. 9, 594.
Science quotes on:  |  Amorphous (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compared (8)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Formless (4)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Fragmented (2)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Irregular (7)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Level (69)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Standard (64)  |  Study (701)  |  Work (1402)

I could almost wish, at this point, that I were in the habit of expressing myself in theological terms, for if I were, I might be able to compress my entire thesis into a sentence. All knowledge of every variety (I might say) is in the mind of God—and the human intellect, even the best, in trying to pluck it forth can but “see through a glass, darkly.”
In Asimov on Physics (1976), 146. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 279.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Darkly (2)  |  Glass (94)  |  God (776)  |  Habit (174)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Point (584)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  See (1094)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thesis (17)  |  Through (846)  |  Trying (144)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wish (216)

I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Boy (100)  |  Career (86)  |  Do (1905)  |  Examination (102)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Noble (93)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Remember (189)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection.
Letter to A. R. Wallace July 1866. In Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter (1887), Vol. 3, 45-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Expression (181)  |  Governing (20)  |  Great (1610)  |  Letter (117)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Objection (34)  |  Reading (136)  |  Say (989)  |  Selection (130)  |  Herbert Spencer (37)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  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)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Through (846)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Want (504)  |  Wire (36)

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
from Origin of Species (1859, 1888), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Call (781)  |  Equally (129)  |  Expression (181)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Order (638)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Selection (130)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Useful (260)  |  Variation (93)

I have considered the two terms you want to substitute for eisode and exode, and upon the whole I am disposed to recommend instead of them anode and cathode. These words may signify eastern and western way, just as well as the longer compounds which you mention … I may mention too that anodos and cathodos are good, genuine Greek words, and not compounds coined for the purpose.
Letter to Michael Faraday (25 Apr 1834). Quoted in I. Todhunter (ed.), William Whewell: An Account of His Writings with Selections From His Literary and Scientific Correspondence (1876), Vol. 2, 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Anode (4)  |  Coined (3)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Considered (12)  |  East (18)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Good (906)  |  Greek (109)  |  Mention (84)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Recommendation (12)  |  Signify (17)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  West (21)  |  Western (45)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

Srinivasa Ramanujan quote: I have not trodden through a conventional university course, but I am striking out a new path for mys
I have not trodden through a conventional university course, but I am striking out a new path for myself. I have made a special investigation of divergent series in general and the results I get are termed by the local mathematicians as “startling.”
First letter to G.H. Hardy (16 Jan 1913). In Collected Papers of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1927), xxiii. Hardy notes he did “seem to remember his telling me that his friends had given him some assistance” in writing the letter because Ramanujan's “knowledge of English, at that stage of his life, could scarcely have been sufficient.”
Science quotes on:  |  Conventional (31)  |  Course (413)  |  Divergent (6)  |  General (521)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Local (25)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Path (159)  |  Result (700)  |  Series (153)  |  Special (188)  |  Startling (15)  |  Striking (48)  |  Termed (2)  |  Through (846)  |  Tread (17)  |  University (130)

I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition. ... We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.
In Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self (1991), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Activity (218)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Body (557)  |  Brain (281)  |  Claim (154)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Demeaning (2)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Existence (481)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Material (366)  |  Materialism (11)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Neuron (10)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reductionism (8)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Terms (184)  |  World (1850)

I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.
Concluding remarks of keynote address at CSICOP conference, Pasadena, California (3 Apr 1987). Printed in 'The Burden of Skepticism', Skeptical Inquirer (1987), 12, No. 1. Collected in Kendrick Frazier (ed.), The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal (1991), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Additional (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Pseudoscience (17)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wonder (251)

I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
In Redbook, November 1978.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Individual (420)  |  Measure (241)  |  Must (1525)  |  Success (327)  |  Terms (184)

I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. The dove is my emblem.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dive (13)  |  Emblem (4)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Give (208)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Improve (64)  |  Invent (57)  |  Invention (400)  |  Item (4)  |  Kill (100)  |  Life (1870)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Pick Up (5)  |  Pride (84)  |  Save (126)  |  Service (110)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Want (504)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

I require a term to express those bodies which can pass to the electrodes, or, as they are usually called, the poles. Substances are frequently spoken of as being electro-negative, or electro-positive, according as they go under the supposed influence of a direct attraction to the positive or negative pole. But these terms are much too significant for the use to which I should have to put them; for though the meanings are perhaps right, they are only hypothetical, and may be wrong; and then, through a very imperceptible, but still very dangerous, because continual, influence, they do great injury to science, by contracting and limiting the habitual view of those engaged in pursuing it. I propose to distinguish these bodies by calling those anions which go to the anode of the decomposing body; and those passing to the cathode, cations; and when I have occasion to speak of these together, I shall call them ions.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1834, 124, 79.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Anion (3)  |  Anode (4)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Cation (3)  |  Continual (44)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrolysis (8)  |  Express (192)  |  Great (1610)  |  Influence (231)  |  Injury (36)  |  Ion (21)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Negative (66)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Pole (49)  |  Positive (98)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Require (229)  |  Right (473)  |  Significant (78)  |  Speak (240)  |  Still (614)  |  Substance (253)  |  Terms (184)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  View (496)  |  Wrong (246)

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)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  Track (42)  |  Track Record (4)  |  Want (504)

I think the name atomic theory was an unfortunate one. We talk fluently about atoms as the smallest particles that exist, and chemists regard them as indivisible … To my mind the infinitely small is as incomprehensible as the infinitely great. … we cannot comprehend it, we cannot take it in. And so with the atom. Therefore I think that it would have been better to have taken a different word—say minim—which would have been a safer term than atom.
Address, in 'Report to the Chemical Society's Jubilee', Nature (26 Mar 1891), 43, 493.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Theory (16)  |  Better (493)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Different (595)  |  Exist (458)  |  Great (1610)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Particle (200)  |  Regard (312)  |  Safe (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Small (489)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Word (650)

I used to sit in class and listen to the terms come floating down the room like paper airplanes. Geology was called a descriptive science, and with its pitted outwash plains and drowned rivers, its hanging tributaries and starved coastlines, it was nothing if not descriptive. It was a fountain of metaphor…
In Basin and Range (1981), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Call (781)  |  Class (168)  |  Descriptive (18)  |  Descriptive Science (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Float (31)  |  Geology (240)  |  Listen (81)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Paper (192)  |  River (140)  |  Room (42)  |  Sit (51)  |  Terms (184)

I want to note that, because there is the aforementioned difference between mountain and mountain, it will be appropriate, to avoid confusion, to distinguish one [type] from another by different terms; so I shall call the first Primary and the second Secondary.
From De’ Crostacei e degli altri Marini Corpi che si truovano su’ monti (1740), 263, as translated by Ezio Vaccari, from the original Italian, “Qui sol piacemi notare, che, giacchè tra monti e monti v’è l'accennata differenza, farà bene, per ischifar la confusione , distinguere gli uni dagli altri con differenti vocaboli; e perciò i primi Primarie, i secondi Secondarie monti per me si appelleranno.”
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Call (781)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  First (1302)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Primary (82)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Terms (184)  |  Type (171)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

I wanted some new names to express my facts in Electrical science without involving more theory than I could help & applied to a friend Dr Nicholl [his doctor], who has given me some that I intend to adopt for instance, a body decomposable by the passage of the Electric current, I call an ‘electrolyte’ and instead of saying that water is electro chemically decomposed I say it is ‘electrolyzed’. The intensity above which a body is decomposed beneath which it conducts without decomposition I call the ‘Electrolyte intensity’ &c &c. What have been called: the poles of the battery I call the electrodes they are not merely surfaces of metal, but even of water & air, to which the term poles could hardly apply without receiving a new sense. Electrolytes must consist of two parts which during the electrolization, are determined the one in the one direction, and the other towards the poles where they are evolved; these evolved substances I call zetodes, which are therefore the direct constituents of electrolites.
Letter to William Whewell (24 Apr 1834). In Frank A. J. L. James (ed.), The Correspondence of Michael Faraday: Volume 2, 1832-1840 (1993), 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Battery (12)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Current (122)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Direct (228)  |  Direction (185)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electrolysis (8)  |  Electrolyte (4)  |  Express (192)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Friend (180)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Merely (315)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Pole (49)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Want (504)  |  Water (503)

I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis. So I decided on science when I was in college.
Interview conducted on Scholastic website (20 Nov 1998).
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Career (86)  |  College (71)  |  Decide (50)  |  Interest (416)  |  Long (778)  |  Tennis (8)

I was suffering from a sharp attack of intermittent fever, and every day during the cold and succeeding hot fits had to lie down for several hours, during which time I had nothing to do but to think over any subjects then particularly interesting me. One day something brought to my recollection Malthus's 'Principles of Population', which I had read about twelve years before. I thought of his clear exposition of 'the positive checks to increase'—disease, accidents, war, and famine—which keep down the population of savage races to so much lower an average than that of more civilized peoples. It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in the case of animals also; and as animals usually breed much more rapidly than does mankind, the destruction every year from these causes must be enormous in order to keep down the numbers of each species, since they evidently do not increase regularly from year to year, as otherwise the world would long ago have been densely crowded with those that breed most quickly. Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask the question, Why do some die and some live? The answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies, the strongest, swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain—that is, the fittest would survive.
[The phrase 'survival of the fittest,' suggested by the writings of Thomas Robert Malthus, was expressed in those words by Herbert Spencer in 1865. Wallace saw the term in correspondence from Charles Darwin the following year, 1866. However, Wallace did not publish anything on his use of the expression until very much later, and his recollection is likely flawed.]
My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions (1905), Vol. 1, 361-362, or in reprint (2004), 190.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attack (86)  |  Average (89)  |  Best (467)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Constant (148)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Effect (414)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Famine (18)  |  Fever (34)  |  Fit (139)  |  Flash (49)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Generation (256)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Kill (100)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Thomas Robert Malthus (13)  |  Mankind (356)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  People (1031)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Population (115)  |  Positive (98)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Race (278)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Read (308)  |  Remain (355)  |  Saw (160)  |  Self (268)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Subject (543)  |  Succeeding (14)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Superior (88)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Survive (87)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  War (233)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Sound (187)  |  Terms (184)

I would like to see us continue to explore space. There's just a lot for us to keep learning. I think it’s a good investment, so on my list of things that I want our country to invest in—in terms of research and innovation and science, basic science, exploring space, exploring our oceans, exploring our genome—we’re at the brink of all kinds of new information. Let's not back off now!
At Town Hall Meeting, Dover, New Hampshire (16 Jul 2015). As quoted in Clare Foran, 'Hillary Clinton: I Wanted to Be an Astronaut', National Journal (16 Jul 2015).
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Basic (144)  |  Brink (2)  |  Continue (179)  |  Country (269)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Genome (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Information (173)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Invest (20)  |  Investment (15)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learning (291)  |  List (10)  |  Lot (151)  |  New (1273)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Research (753)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Want (504)

I’m such a long-term investor, I’ve never really let go and celebrated what I did with the Hubble telescope.
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
Science quotes on:  |  Celebration (7)  |  Hubble Space Telescope (9)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Never (1089)  |  Telescope (106)

If I have put the case of science at all correctly, the reader will have recognised that modern science does much more than demand that it shall be left in undisturbed possession of what the theologian and metaphysician please to term its “legitimate field.” It claims that the whole range of phenomena, mental as well as physical—the entire universe—is its field. It asserts that the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 29-30.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Case (102)  |  Claim (154)  |  Correction (42)  |  Demand (131)  |  Field (378)  |  Gateway (6)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Left (15)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Mental (179)  |  Metaphysician (7)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Please (68)  |  Possession (68)  |  Range (104)  |  Reader (42)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Region (40)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sole (50)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Undisturbed (4)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my dreams in music. I see my life in terms of music... I get most joy in life out of music.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  Joy (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Musician (23)  |  Often (109)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Probably (50)  |  See (1094)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)

If in a given community unchecked popular rule means unlimited waste and destruction of the natural resources—soil, fertility, waterpower, forests, game, wild-life generally—which by right belong as much to subsequent generations as to the present generation, then it is sure proof that the present generation is not yet really fit for self-control, that it is not yet really fit to exercise the high and responsible privilege of a rule which shall be both by the people and for the people. The term “for the people” must always include the people unborn as well as the people now alive, or the democratic ideal is not realized.
In A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open (1916), 319.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Belong (168)  |  Both (496)  |  Community (111)  |  Control (182)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Fit (139)  |  Forest (161)  |  Game (104)  |  Generation (256)  |  High (370)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Include (93)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Resource (23)  |  People (1031)  |  Popular (34)  |  Present (630)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Proof (304)  |  Realization (44)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Right (473)  |  Rule (307)  |  Self (268)  |  Soil (98)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Unborn (5)  |  Unchecked (4)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water Power (6)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wildlife (16)

If one were to define chance as the outcome of a random movement which interlocks with no causes, I should maintain that it does not exist at all, that it is a wholly empty term denoting nothing substantial.
The Consolation of Philosophy [before 524], Book V, trans. P. G. Walsh (1999), 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Chance (244)  |  Empty (82)  |  Exist (458)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Random (42)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Wholly (88)

If the observation of the amount of heat the sun sends the earth is among the most important and difficult in astronomical physics, it may also be termed the fundamental problem of meteorology, nearly all whose phenomena would become predictable, if we knew both the original quantity and kind of this heat.
In Report of the Mount Whitney Expedition, quoted in Charles Greeley Abbot, Adventures in the World of Science (1958), 17. Also quoted and cited in David H. Devorkin, 'Charles Greeley Abbot', Biographical Memoirs (1998), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Astrophysics (15)  |  Become (821)  |  Both (496)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Heat (180)  |  Important (229)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Observation (593)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Predictable (10)  |  Problem (731)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sun (407)

If the poor overweight jogger only knew how far he had to run to work off the calories in a crust of bread he might find it better in terms of pound per mile to go to a massage parlor.
In M. P. Singh, Quote Unquote: A Handbook of Quotations (2007), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Bread (42)  |  Crust (43)  |  Diet (56)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Find (1014)  |  Poor (139)  |  Run (158)  |  Terms (184)  |  Work (1402)

If the term education may be understood in so large a sense as to include all that belongs to the improvement of the mind, either by the acquisition of the knowledge of others or by increase of it through its own exertions, we learn by them what is the kind of education science offers to man. It teaches us to be neglectful of nothing — not to despise the small beginnings, for they precede of necessity all great things in the knowledge of science, either pure or applied.
'Science as a Branch of Education', lecture to the Royal Institution, 11 Jun 1858. Reprinted in The Mechanics Magazine (1858), 49, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Applied (176)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belong (168)  |  Education (423)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Include (93)  |  Increase (225)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pure (299)  |  Sense (785)  |  Small (489)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other geometrical terms …
In 'A Voyage to Laputa', Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World by Captain Lemuel Gulliver (1726), Vol 2, Part 3, 26. (Gulliver’s Travels)
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Circle (117)  |  Describe (132)  |  Ellipse (8)  |  Example (98)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parallelogram (3)  |  Praise (28)  |  Terms (184)  |  Woman (160)

If to-day you ask a physicist what he has finally made out the æther or the electron to be, the answer will not be a description in terms of billiard balls or fly-wheels or anything concrete; he will point instead to a number of symbols and a set of mathematical equations which they satisfy. What do the symbols stand for? The mysterious reply is given that physics is indifferent to that; it has no means of probing beneath the symbolism. To understand the phenomena of the physical world it is necessary to know the equations which the symbols obey but not the nature of that which is being symbolised. …this newer outlook has modified the challenge from the material to the spiritual world.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Ball (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Billiard (4)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electron (96)  |  Equation (138)  |  Fly (153)  |  Know (1538)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Obey (46)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Reply (58)  |  Set (400)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Stand (284)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Terms (184)  |  Understand (648)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

If we denote excitation as an end-effect by the sign plus (+), and inhibition as end-effect by the sign minus (–), such a reflex as the scratch-reflex can be termed a reflex of double-sign, for it develops excitatory end-effect and then inhibitory end-effect even during the duration of the exciting stimulus.
The Integrative Action of the Nervous System (1906), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Develop (278)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Excitation (9)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Inhibition (13)  |  Plus (43)  |  Reflex (14)  |  Scratch (14)  |  Sign (63)  |  Stimulus (30)

If you were going to risk all that, not just risk the hardship and the pain but risk your life. Put everything on line for a dream, for something that’s worth nothing, that can’t be proved to anybody. You just have the transient moment on a summit and when you come back down to the valley it goes. It is actually a completely illogical thing to do. It is not justifiable by any rational terms. That’s probably why you do it.
The Beckoning Silence
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Back (395)  |  Completely (137)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Dream (222)  |  Everything (489)  |  Hardship (4)  |  Illogical (2)  |  Justifiable (3)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pain (144)  |  Probably (50)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rational (95)  |  Risk (68)  |  Something (718)  |  Summit (27)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transient (13)  |  Valley (37)  |  Why (491)  |  Worth (172)

If you’re telling a story, it’s very tempting to personalise an animal. To start with, biologists said this fascination with one individual was just television storytelling. But they began to realise that, actually, it was a new way to understand behaviour–following the fortunes of one particular animal could be very revealing and have all kinds of implications in terms of the ecology and general behaviour of the animals in that area.
From interview with Alice Roberts, 'Attenborough: My Life on Earth', The Biologist (Aug 2015), 62, No. 4, 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Fortune (50)  |  General (521)  |  Implication (25)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  New (1273)  |  Personalize (2)  |  Realize (157)  |  Research (753)  |  Start (237)  |  Story (122)  |  Television (33)  |  Tempting (10)  |  Terms (184)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)

If, for example, I had some idea, which, as it turned out would, say, be quite wrong, was going off of the tangent, Watson would tell me in no uncertain terms this was nonsense, and vice-versa. If he had some idea I didn’t like and I would say so and this would shake his thinking about it and draw him back again. And in fact, it’s one of the requirements for collaboration of this sort that you must be perfectly candid, one might almost say rude, to the person you are working with. It’s useless, working with somebody who’s either much too junior than yourself, or much too senior, because then politeness creeps in. And this is the end of all real collaboration in science.
As quoted in Robert Olby, The Path to the Double Helix: The Discovery of the Double Helix, (1974, 1994), 316, citing Transcript of BBC TV program, The Prizewinners (1962).
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Candid (3)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Creep (15)  |  Draw (140)  |  End (603)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Idea (881)  |  Junior (6)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Person (366)  |  Politeness (4)  |  Real (159)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Rude (6)  |  Say (989)  |  Senior (7)  |  Shake (43)  |  Tangent (6)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Turn (454)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Useless (38)  |  Vice (42)  |  James Watson (33)  |  Working (23)  |  Wrong (246)

In 1906 I indulged my temper by hurling invectives at Neo-Darwinians in the following terms. “I really do not wish to be abusive [to Neo-Darwinians]; but when I think of these poor little dullards, with their precarious hold of just that corner of evolution that a blackbeetle can understand—with their retinue of twopenny-halfpenny Torquemadas wallowing in the infamies of the vivisector’s laboratory, and solemnly offering us as epoch-making discoveries their demonstrations that dogs get weaker and die if you give them no food; that intense pain makes mice sweat; and that if you cut off a dog’s leg the three-legged dog will have a four-legged puppy, I ask myself what spell has fallen on intelligent and humane men that they allow themselves to be imposed on by this rabble of dolts, blackguards, imposters, quacks, liars, and, worst of all, credulous conscientious fools.”
In Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), lxi
Science quotes on:  |  Abuse (25)  |  Ask (420)  |  Conscientious (7)  |  Corner (59)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Credulous (9)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dog (70)  |  Dullard (2)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Food (213)  |  Fool (121)  |  Humane (19)  |  Hurling (2)  |  Impostor (4)  |  Infamy (2)  |  Inquisitor (6)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Invective (2)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Leg (35)  |  Liar (8)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Myself (211)  |  Pain (144)  |  Poor (139)  |  Quack (18)  |  Retinue (3)  |  Starvation (13)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Temper (12)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Weakening (2)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worst (57)

In a sense cosmology contains all subjects because it is the story of everything, including biology, psychology and human history. In that single sense it can be said to contain an explanation also of time's arrow. But this is not what is meant by those who advocate the cosmological explanation of irreversibility. They imply that in some way the time arrow of cosmology imposes its sense on the thermodynamic arrow. I wish to disagree with this view. The explanation assumes that the universe is expanding. While this is current orthodoxy, there is no certainty about it. The red-shifts might be due to quite different causes. For example, when light passes through the expanding clouds of gas it will be red-shifted. A large number of such clouds might one day be invoked to explain these red shifts. It seems an odd procedure to attempt to 'explain' everyday occurrences, such as the diffusion of milk into coffee, by means of theories of the universe which are themselves less firmly established than the phenomena to be explained. Most people believe in explaining one set of things in terms of others about which they are more certain, and the explanation of normal irreversible phenomena in terms of the cosmological expansion is not in this category.
'Thermodynamics, Cosmology) and the Physical Constants', in J. T. Fraser (ed.), The Study of Time III (1973), 117-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Advocate (20)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Biology (232)  |  Category (19)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Coffee (21)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Current (122)  |  Different (595)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Due (143)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Gas (89)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Irreversibility (4)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Milk (23)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Red-Shift (4)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Shift (45)  |  Single (365)  |  Story (122)  |  Subject (543)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

In all matters of opinion and science ... the difference between men is ... oftener found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in appearance. An explication of the terms commonly ends the controversy, and the disputants are surprised to find that they had been quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgement.
Dissertation IV, 'Of the Standard of Taste', Four Dissertations (1757), 204.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Commonly (9)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Difference (355)  |  End (603)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  General (521)  |  Judgement (8)  |  Less (105)  |  Lie (370)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men (20)  |  Often (109)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Particular (80)  |  Quarrel (10)  |  Reality (274)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Terms (184)

In its earliest development knowledge is self-sown. Impressions force themselves upon men’s senses whether they will or not, and often against their will. The amount of interest in which these impressions awaken is determined by the coarser pains and pleasures which they carry in their train or by mere curiosity; and reason deals with the materials supplied to it as far as that interest carries it, and no further. Such common knowledge is rather brought than sought; and such ratiocination is little more than the working of a blind intellectual instinct. It is only when the mind passes beyond this condition that it begins to evolve science. When simple curiosity passes into the love of knowledge as such, and the gratification of the æsthetic sense of the beauty of completeness and accuracy seems more desirable that the easy indolence of ignorance; when the finding out of the causes of things becomes a source of joy, and he is accounted happy who is successful in the search, common knowledge passes into what our forefathers called natural history, whence there is but a step to that which used to be termed natural philosophy, and now passes by the name of physical science.
In this final state of knowledge the phenomena of nature are regarded as one continuous series of causes and effects; and the ultimate object of science is to trace out that series, from the term which is nearest to us, to that which is at the farthest limit accessible to our means of investigation.
The course of nature as it is, as it has been, and as it will be, is the object of scientific inquiry; whatever lies beyond, above, or below this is outside science. But the philosopher need not despair at the limitation on his field of labor; in relation to the human mind Nature is boundless; and, though nowhere inaccessible, she is everywhere unfathomable.
The Crayfish: an Introduction to the Study of Zoölogy (1880), 2-3. Excerpted in Popular Science (Apr 1880), 16, 789-790.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Account (195)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Against (332)  |  Amount (153)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blind (98)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Call (781)  |  Carry (130)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Common (447)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Condition (362)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Course (413)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Deal (192)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Despair (40)  |  Determination (80)  |  Development (441)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Field (378)  |  Final (121)  |  Finding (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Forefather (4)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Indolence (8)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Joy (117)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pain (144)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Ratiocination (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Search (175)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Simple (426)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Successful (134)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trace (109)  |  Tracing (3)  |  Train (118)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unfathomable (11)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be “known” with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.
In The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1963), Vol. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Effort (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Remain (355)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Uncertain (45)

In like manner, the loadstone has from nature its two poles, a northern and a southern; fixed, definite points in the stone, which are the primary termini of the movements and effects, and the limits and regulators of the several actions and properties. It is to be understood, however, that not from a mathematical point does the force of the stone emanate, but from the parts themselves; and all these parts in the whole—while they belong to the whole—the nearer they are to the poles of the stone the stronger virtues do they acquire and pour out on other bodies. These poles look toward the poles of the earth, and move toward them, and are subject to them. The magnetic poles may be found in very loadstone, whether strong and powerful (male, as the term was in antiquity) or faint, weak, and female; whether its shape is due to design or to chance, and whether it be long, or flat, or four-square, or three-cornered or polished; whether it be rough, broken-off, or unpolished: the loadstone ever has and ever shows its poles.
On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies and on the Great Magnet the Earth: A New Physiology, Demonstrated with many Arguments and Experiments (1600), trans. P. Fleury Mottelay (1893), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Belong (168)  |  Broken (56)  |  Chance (244)  |  Corner (59)  |  Definite (114)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Female (50)  |  Flat (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Limit (294)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Pole (49)  |  Polish (17)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Primary (82)  |  Show (353)  |  Square (73)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Two (936)  |  Understood (155)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Weak (73)  |  Whole (756)

In mathematics it [sophistry] had no place from the beginning: Mathematicians having had the wisdom to define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly we find no parties among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.
In Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay 1, chap. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accordingly (5)  |  Accurately (7)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Define (53)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Down (455)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Party (19)  |  Place (192)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Sophistry (3)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)  |  Wisdom (235)

In reality the origin of the notion of derivatives is in the vague feeling of the mobility of things, and of the greater or less speed with which phenomena take place; this is well expressed by the terms fluent and fluxion, which were used by Newton and which we may believe were borrowed from the ancient mathematician Heraclitus.
From address to the section of Algebra and Analysis, International Congress of Arts and Sciences, St. Louis (22 Sep 1904), 'On the Development of Mathematical Analysis and its Relation to Certain Other Sciences,' as translated by M.W. Haskell in Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (May 1905), 11, 407.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Borrow (31)  |  Derivative (6)  |  Express (192)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fluent (2)  |  Fluxion (7)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heraclitus (15)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mobility (11)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Notion (120)  |  Origin (250)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Reality (274)  |  Speed (66)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vague (50)

In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.
PBS interview with David Frost (Nov 1995). In Lisa Rogak (ed.) The Impatient Optimist - Bill Gates in his Words (2012), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Doing (277)  |  God (776)  |  Happen (282)  |  Know (1538)  |  Principle (530)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Why (491)

In terms of the way a geologist operates, there is no past until after the assumption of uniformity has been made.
'The Theory of Geology', in C. C. Albritton (ed.), The Fabric of Geology (1963), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Geologist (82)  |  History (716)  |  Past (355)  |  Terms (184)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Way (1214)

In the expressions we adopt to prescribe physical phenomena we necessarily hover between two extremes. We either have to choose a word which implies more than we can prove, or we have to use vague and general terms which hide the essential point, instead of bringing it out. The history of electrical theories furnishes a good example.
Opening Address to the Annual Meeting of the British Association by Prof. Arthur Schuster, in Nature (4 Aug 1892), 46, 325.
Science quotes on:  |  Choice (114)  |  Choose (116)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Essential (210)  |  Example (98)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Furnish (97)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Good (906)  |  Hide (70)  |  Hiding (12)  |  History (716)  |  Hover (8)  |  Implication (25)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vagueness (15)  |  Word (650)

In the fall of 1967, [I was invited] to a conference … on pulsars. … In my talk, I argued that we should consider the possibility that the center of a pulsar is a gravitationally completely collapsed object. I remarked that one couldn't keep saying “gravitationally completely collapsed object” over and over. One needed a shorter descriptive phrase. “How about black hole?” asked someone in the audience. I had been searching for the right term for months, mulling it over in bed, in the bathtub, in my car, whenever I had quiet moments. Suddenly this name seemed exactly right. When I gave a more formal Sigma Xi-Phi Beta Kappa lecture … on December 29, 1967, I used the term, and then included it in the written version of the lecture published in the spring of 1968. (As it turned out, a pulsar is powered by “merely” a neutron star, not a black hole.)
[Although John Wheeler is often identified as coining the term “black hole,” he in fact merely popularized the expression. In his own words, this is his explanation of the true origin: a suggestion from an unidentified person in a conference audience.]
In Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam (2000), 296-297.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Audience (28)  |  Black Hole (17)  |  Car (75)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conference (18)  |  Consider (428)  |  Descriptive (18)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fall (243)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Merely (315)  |  Moment (260)  |  Month (91)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Neutron Star (3)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Object (438)  |  Origin (250)  |  Person (366)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Power (771)  |  Pulsar (3)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Right (473)  |  Small (489)  |  Spring (140)  |  Star (460)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Turn (454)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Word (650)

In the heavens we discover [stars] by their light, and by their light alone ... the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds ... that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule therefore throughout the universe bears impressed upon it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.
[Footnote: Where Maxwell uses the term “molecule” we now use the term “atom.”]
Lecture to the British Association at Bradford (1873), 'Atoms and Molecules'. Quoted by Ernest Rutherford, in 'The Constitution of Matter and the Evolution of the Elements', The Popular Science Monthly (Aug 1915), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arcturus (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bear (162)  |  Cubit (2)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Execute (7)  |  Existence (481)  |  Find (1014)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Metric System (6)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Royal (56)  |  Small (489)  |  Sole (50)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  System (545)  |  Temple (45)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Wavelength (10)  |  World (1850)

In this respect mathematics fails to reproduce with complete fidelity the obvious fact that experience is not composed of static bits, but is a string of activity, or the fact that the use of language is an activity, and the total meanings of terms are determined by the matrix in which they are embedded.
In The Nature of Physical Theory (1936), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Bit (21)  |  Complete (209)  |  Compose (20)  |  Determine (152)  |  Embed (7)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fail (191)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matrix (14)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Respect (212)  |  Static (9)  |  String (22)  |  Terms (184)  |  Total (95)  |  Use (771)

Index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail.
Index-learning is a term used to mock pretenders who acquire superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes.
The Dunciad (1728), Book 1, 279. Reference from The Oxford English Dictionary.
Science quotes on:  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learning (291)  |  Merely (315)  |  Student (317)  |  Turn (454)

Investigating the conditions under which mutations occur … requires studies of mutation frequency under various methods of handling the organisms. As yet, extremely little has been done along this line. That is because, in the past, a mutation was considered a windfall, and the expression “mutation frequency” would have seemed a contradiction in terms. To attempt to study it would have seemed as absurd as to study the conditions affecting the distribution of dollar bills on the sidewalk. You were simply fortunate if you found one. … Of late, however, we may say that certain very exceptional banking houses have been found, in front of which the dollars fall more frequently—in other words, specially mutable genes have been discovered, that are beginning to yield abundant data at the hands of Nilsson-Ehle, Zeleny, Emerson, Anderson and others.
In 'Variation Due to Change in the Individual Gene', The American Naturalist (Jan-Feb 1922), 56, No. 642, 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Abundant (23)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Certain (557)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Data (162)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Gene (105)  |  House (143)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Late (119)  |  Little (717)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Occur (151)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Require (229)  |  Say (989)  |  Sidewalk (2)  |  Study (701)  |  Terms (184)  |  Various (205)  |  Windfall (2)  |  Word (650)  |  Yield (86)

Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow. ... The consciousness of each of us is evolution looking at itself and reflecting upon itself....Man is not the center of the universe as once we thought in our simplicity, but something much more wonderful—the arrow pointing the way to the final unification of the world in terms of life. Man alone constitutes the last-born, the freshest, the most complicated, the most subtle of all the successive layers of life. ... The universe has always been in motion and at this moment continues to be in motion. But will it still be in motion tomorrow? ... What makes the world in which we live specifically modern is our discovery in it and around it of evolution. ... Thus in all probability, between our modern earth and the ultimate earth, there stretches an immense period, characterized not by a slowing-down but a speeding up and by the definitive florescence of the forces of evolution along the line of the human shoot.
In The Phenomenon of Man (1975), pp 218, 220, 223, 227, 228, 277.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Bow (15)  |  Center (35)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Continue (179)  |  Curve (49)  |  Definitive (3)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Final (121)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Immense (89)  |  Last (425)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Line (100)  |  Live (650)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Period (200)  |  Pointing (4)  |  Probability (135)  |  Reflecting (3)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Shoot (21)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Successive (73)  |  System (545)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thinkable (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  True (239)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unification (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition—and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that—“Bugs” as such little faults and difficulties are called show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success—or failure—is certainly reached.
Describing his invention of a storage battery that involved 10,296 experiments. Note Edison’s use of the term “Bug” in the engineering research field for a mechanical defect greatly predates the use of the term as applied by Admiral Grace Murray Hopper to a computing defect upon finding a moth in the electronic mainframe.] Letter to Theodore Puskas (18 Nov 1878). In The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Applied (176)  |  Arise (162)  |  Battery (12)  |  Bug (10)  |  Burst (41)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Defect (31)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Grace (31)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Invention (400)  |  Involved (90)  |  Labor (200)  |  Little (717)  |  Mainframe (3)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Month (91)  |  Reach (286)  |  Research (753)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Step (234)  |  Storage (6)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Watch (118)

It has been said that no science is established on a firm basis unless its generalisations can be expressed in terms of number, and it is the special province of mathematics to assist the investigator in finding numerical relations between phenomena. After experiment, then mathematics. While a science is in the experimental or observational stage, there is little scope for discerning numerical relations. It is only after the different workers have “collected data” that the mathematician is able to deduce the required generalisation. Thus a Maxwell followed Faraday and a Newton completed Kepler.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Assist (9)  |  Basis (180)  |  Collect (19)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completed (30)  |  Data (162)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Different (595)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Establish (63)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Express (192)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Firm (47)  |  Follow (389)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Province (37)  |  Relation (166)  |  Required (108)  |  Scope (44)  |  Special (188)  |  Stage (152)  |  Terms (184)  |  Worker (34)

It is admitted by all that a finished or even a competent reasoner is not the work of nature alone; the experience of every day makes it evident that education develops faculties which would otherwise never have manifested their existence. It is, therefore, as necessary to learn to reason before we can expect to be able to reason, as it is to learn to swim or fence, in order to attain either of those arts. Now, something must be reasoned upon, it matters not much what it is, provided it can be reasoned upon with certainty. The properties of mind or matter, or the study of languages, mathematics, or natural history, may be chosen for this purpose. Now of all these, it is desirable to choose the one which admits of the reasoning being verified, that is, in which we can find out by other means, such as measurement and ocular demonstration of all sorts, whether the results are true or not. When the guiding property of the loadstone was first ascertained, and it was necessary to learn how to use this new discovery, and to find out how far it might be relied on, it would have been thought advisable to make many passages between ports that were well known before attempting a voyage of discovery. So it is with our reasoning faculties: it is desirable that their powers should be exerted upon objects of such a nature, that we can tell by other means whether the results which we obtain are true or false, and this before it is safe to trust entirely to reason. Now the mathematics are peculiarly well adapted for this purpose, on the following grounds:
1. Every term is distinctly explained, and has but one meaning, and it is rarely that two words are employed to mean the same thing.
2. The first principles are self-evident, and, though derived from observation, do not require more of it than has been made by children in general.
3. The demonstration is strictly logical, taking nothing for granted except self-evident first principles, resting nothing upon probability, and entirely independent of authority and opinion.
4. When the conclusion is obtained by reasoning, its truth or falsehood can be ascertained, in geometry by actual measurement, in algebra by common arithmetical calculation. This gives confidence, and is absolutely necessary, if, as was said before, reason is not to be the instructor, but the pupil.
5. There are no words whose meanings are so much alike that the ideas which they stand for may be confounded. Between the meaning of terms there is no distinction, except a total distinction, and all adjectives and adverbs expressing difference of degrees are avoided.
In On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1898), chap. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Actual (118)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adjective (3)  |  Admit (49)  |  Adverb (3)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Authority (99)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Common (447)  |  Competent (20)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Confound (21)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Derive (70)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Employ (115)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Evident (92)  |  Exert (40)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Faculty (76)  |  False (105)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Far (158)  |  Fence (11)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Grant (76)  |  Ground (222)  |  Guide (107)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Independent (74)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Logical (57)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meanings (5)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ocular (3)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Peculiarly (4)  |  Port (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Property (177)  |  Provide (79)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rely (12)  |  Require (229)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Safe (61)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Something (718)  |  Sort (50)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Study (701)  |  Swim (32)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Total (95)  |  True (239)  |  Trust (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Verify (24)  |  Voyage (13)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

It is difficult even to attach a precise meaning to the term “scientific truth.” So different is the meaning of the word “truth” according to whether we are dealing with a fact of experience, a mathematical proposition or a scientific theory. “Religious truth” conveys nothing clear to me at all.
From 'Scientific Truth' in Essays in Science (1934, 2004), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Attach (57)  |  Clear (111)  |  Convey (17)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Precise (71)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Scientific Truth (23)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

It is going to be necessary that everything that happens in a finite volume of space and time would have to be analyzable with a finite number of logical operations. The present theory of physics is not that way, apparently. It allows space to go down into infinitesimal distances, wavelengths to get infinitely great, terms to be summed in infinite order, and so forth; and therefore, if this proposition [that physics is computer-simulatable] is right, physical law is wrong.
International Journal of Theoretical Physics (1982), 21 Nos. 6-7, 468. Quoted in Brian Rotman, Mathematics as Sign (2000), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Computer (131)  |  Distance (171)  |  Down (455)  |  Everything (489)  |  Finite (60)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Law (913)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Order (638)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Law (15)  |  Physics (564)  |  Present (630)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Right (473)  |  Simulation (7)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wavelength (10)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wrong (246)

It is interesting to note how many fundamental terms which the social sciences are trying to adopt from physics have as a matter of historical fact originated in the social field. Take, for instance, the notion of cause. The Greek aitia or the Latin causa was originally a purely legal term. It was taken over into physics, developed there, and in the 18th century brought back as a foreign-born kind for the adoration of the social sciences. The same is true of the concept of law of nature. Originally a strict anthropomorphic conception, it was gradually depersonalized or dehumanized in the natural sciences and then taken over by the social sciences in an effort to eliminate final causes or purposes from the study of human affairs. It is therefore not anomalous to find similar transformations in the history of such fundamental concepts of statistics as average and probability. The concept of average was developed in the Rhodian laws as to the distribution of losses in maritime risks. After astronomers began to use it in correcting their observations, it spread to other physical sciences; and the prestige which it thus acquired has given it vogue in the social field. The term probability, as its etymology indicates, originates in practical and legal considerations of probing and proving.
The Statistical View of Nature (1936), 327-8.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Adoration (4)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Average (89)  |  Back (395)  |  Cause (561)  |  Century (319)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Develop (278)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Field (378)  |  Final (121)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Greek (109)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Kind (564)  |  Latin (44)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Matter (821)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observation (593)  |  Originate (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Probability (135)  |  Purely (111)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Risk (68)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Spread (86)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Study (701)  |  Terms (184)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Trying (144)  |  Use (771)

It is necessary to avoid the affected conciseness and quaint terms so much in fashion, and only to use the proper language and established terms. Linnæus, otherwise the great ornament of natural historians, is very blameable in this respect…I am the more desirous of fixing technical names, as the unjustifiable and very indecent terms used by Linnaeus in his Bivalves may meet their deserved fate, by being exploded with indignation; for
    Immodest words admit of defense,
    And want of decency is want of sense.

These my terms being adopted, will render descriptions proper, intelligible, and decent; by which the science may become useful, easy, and adapted to all capacities, and to both sexes.
From Preface to Elements of Conchology or, An introduction to the Knowledge of Shells (1776), 108-109. [Note: the quotation comes from the fourth Earl of Roscommon. Benjamin Franklin also used this quote, but he was only repeating it, not originating it.]
Science quotes on:  |  Blame (31)  |  Decency (5)  |  Decent (12)  |  Description (89)  |  Indignation (5)  |  Carolus Linnaeus (36)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Proper (150)

President Clinton at podium + Quote “our children's children will know the term cancer only as a constellation of stars”
President Clinton at the Human Genome Announcement at the White House (20 Jun 2000), with Francis S. Collins (left) and Craig Ventner. (source)
It is now conceivable that our children's children will know the term cancer only as a constellation of stars. [Speaking on the Human Genome Project's progress.]
From White House Announcement of the Completion of the First Survey of the Entire Human Genome Project, broadcast on the day of the publication of the first draft of the human genome. Quoted in transcript on the National Archives, Clinton White House web site, 'Text of Remarks on the Completion of the First Survey of the Entire Human Genome Project' (26 Jun 2000).
Science quotes on:  |  Cancer (61)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Constellation (18)  |  Genome (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Genome (13)  |  Human Genome Project (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Progress (492)  |  Project (77)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Will (2350)

It is probable that the scheme of physics will be enlarged so as to embrace the behaviour of living organisms under the influence of life and mind. Biology and psychology are not alien sciences; their operations are not solely mechanical, nor can they be formulated by physics as it is today; but they belong to a physical universe, and their mode of action ought to be capable of being formulated in terms of an enlarged physics in the future, in which the ether will take a predominant place. On the other hand it may be thought that those entities cannot be brought to book so easily, and that they will always elude our ken. If so, there will be a dualism in the universe, which posterity will find staggering, but that will not alter the facts.
In Past Years: an Autobiography (1932), 350. Quoted in book review, Waldehar Kaempfert, 'Sir Oliver Lodge Stands by the Old Physics', New York Times (21 Feb 1932), BR5.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Alien (35)  |  Alter (64)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Biology (232)  |  Book (413)  |  Capable (174)  |  Dualism (4)  |  Elude (11)  |  Eluding (2)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Enlargement (8)  |  Ether (37)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Future (467)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Predominance (3)  |  Probability (135)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Staggering (2)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

It is profitable nevertheless to permit ourselves to talk about 'meaningless' terms in the narrow sense if the preconditions to which all profitable operations are subject are so intuitive and so universally accepted as to form an almost unconscious part of the background of the public using the term. Physicists of the present day do constitute a homogenous public of this character; it is in the air that certain sorts of operation are valueless for achieving certain sorts of result. If one wants to know how many planets there are one counts them but does not ask a philosopher what is the perfect number.
Reflections of a Physicist (1950), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Air (366)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Ask (420)  |  Background (44)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Count (107)  |  Do (1905)  |  Form (976)  |  Know (1538)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfect Number (6)  |  Permit (61)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Planet (402)  |  Present (630)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Subject (543)  |  Terms (184)  |  Want (504)

It is structure that we look for whenever we try to understand anything. All science is built upon this search; we investigate how the cell is built of reticular material, cytoplasm, chromosomes; how crystals aggregate; how atoms are fastened together; how electrons constitute a chemical bond between atoms. We like to understand, and to explain, observed facts in terms of structure. A chemist who understands why a diamond has certain properties, or why nylon or hemoglobin have other properties, because of the different ways their atoms are arranged, may ask questions that a geologist would not think of formulating, unless he had been similarly trained in this way of thinking about the world.
‘The Place of Chemistry In the Integration of the Sciences’, Main Currents in Modern Thought (1950), 7, 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bond (46)  |  Building (158)  |  Cell (146)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Cytoplasm (6)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Different (595)  |  Electron (96)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fastening (2)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Haemoglobin (4)  |  Hemoglobin (5)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Look (584)  |  Material (366)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Property (177)  |  Question (649)  |  Search (175)  |  Structure (365)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Together (392)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

It is the constant aim of the mathematician to reduce all his expressions to their lowest terms, to retrench every superfluous word and phrase, and to condense the Maximum of meaning into the Minimum of language.
In Address (22 Feb 1877) for Commemoration Day at Johns Hopkins University. Published as a pamphlet, and reprinted in The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester: (1870-1883) (1909), Vol. 3, 72-73.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Condense (15)  |  Constant (148)  |  Expression (181)  |  Language (308)  |  Lowest (10)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Minimum (13)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Retrench (2)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Terms (184)  |  Word (650)

It is the constant attempt in this country [Canada] to make fundamental science responsive to the marketplace. Because technology needs science, it is tempting to require that scientific projects be justified in terms of the worth of the technology they can be expected to generate. The effect of applying this criterion is, however, to restrict science to developed fields where the links to technology are most evident. By continually looking for a short-term payoff we disqualify the sort of science that … attempts to answer fundamental questions, and, having answered them, suggests fundamentally new approaches in the realm of applications.
'A Scientist and the World He Lives In', Speech to the Empire Club of Canada (27 Nov 1986) in C. Frank Turner and Tim Dickson (eds.), The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 1986-1987 (1987), 149-161.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Application (257)  |  Approach (112)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Canada (6)  |  Constant (148)  |  Country (269)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disqualification (2)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evident (92)  |  Expect (203)  |  Field (378)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Looking (191)  |  Marketplace (4)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Payoff (3)  |  Project (77)  |  Question (649)  |  Realm (87)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Responsiveness (2)  |  Restriction (14)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Term (3)  |  Technology (281)  |  Tempting (10)  |  Terms (184)  |  Worth (172)

It is the relationship between the physical environment and the environed organism, between physiography and ontography (to coin a term), that constitutes the essential principles of geography today.
'Systematic Geography', read 3 April 1902. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, 1902, 41, 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Constitute (99)  |  Environment (239)  |  Essential (210)  |  Geography (39)  |  Organism (231)  |  Physical (518)  |  Principle (530)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Today (321)

It is very desirable to have a word to express the Availability for work of the heat in a given magazine; a term for that possession, the waste of which is called Dissipation. Unfortunately the excellent word Entropy, which Clausius has introduced in this connexion, is applied by him to the negative of the idea we most naturally wish to express. It would only confuse the student if we were to endeavour to invent another term for our purpose. But the necessity for some such term will be obvious from the beautiful examples which follow. And we take the liberty of using the term Entropy in this altered sense ... The entropy of the universe tends continually to zero.
Sketch of Thermodynamics (1868), 100-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Altered (32)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Availability (10)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Call (781)  |  Rudolf Clausius (9)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Connection (171)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dissipation (2)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Idea (881)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liberty (29)  |   Magazine (26)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Negative (66)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Possession (68)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Sense (785)  |  Student (317)  |  Tend (124)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Universe (900)  |  Waste (109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Zero (38)

It is very remarkable that while the words Eternal, Eternity, Forever, are constantly in our mouths, and applied without hesitation, we yet experience considerable difficulty in contemplating any definite term which bears a very large proportion to the brief cycles of our petty chronicles. There are many minds that would not for an instant doubt the God of Nature to have existed from all Eternity, and would yet reject as preposterous the idea of going back a million of years in the History of His Works. Yet what is a million, or a million million, of solar revolutions to an Eternity?
Memoir on the Geology of Central France (1827), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Back (395)  |  Bear (162)  |  Brief (37)  |  Chronicle (6)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Definite (114)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Forever (111)  |  God (776)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Instant (46)  |  Large (398)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Petty (9)  |  Preposterous (8)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reject (67)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

It is well-known that both rude and civilized peoples are capable of showing unspeakable, and as it is erroneously termed, inhuman cruelty towards each other. These acts of cruelty, murder and rapine are often the result of the inexorable logic of national characteristics, and are unhappily truly human, since nothing like them can be traced in the animal world. It would, for instance, be a grave mistake to compare a tiger with the bloodthirsty exectioner of the Reign of Terror, since the former only satisfies his natural appetite in preying on other mammals. The atrocities of the trials for witchcraft, the indiscriminate slaughter committed by the negroes on the coast of Guinea, the sacrifice of human victims made by the Khonds, the dismemberment of living men by the Battas, find no parallel in the habits of animals in their savage state. And such a comparision is, above all, impossible in the case of anthropoids, which display no hostility towards men or other animals unless they are first attacked. In this respect the anthropid ape stands on a higher plane than many men.
Robert Hartmann, Anthropoid Apes, 294-295.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Animal (651)  |  Anthropoid (9)  |  Ape (54)  |  Appetite (20)  |  Attack (86)  |  Both (496)  |  Capable (174)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Compare (76)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Display (59)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Former (138)  |  Grave (52)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inexorable (10)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parallel (46)  |  People (1031)  |  Reign (24)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Terror (32)  |  Trial (59)  |  Truly (118)  |  Victim (37)  |  Witchcraft (6)  |  World (1850)

It must be gently but firmly pointed out that analogy is the very corner-stone of scientific method. A root-and-branch condemnation would invalidate any attempt to explain the unknown in terms of the known, and thus prune away every hypothesis.
In 'On Analogy', The Cambridge Magazine (2 Mar 1918), 476. As quoted in Robert Scott Root-Bernstein and Michèle Root-Bernstein, Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative (2001), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Branch (155)  |  Condemnation (16)  |  Corner (59)  |  Cornerstone (8)  |  Explain (334)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Out (9)  |  Prune (7)  |  Root (121)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Stone (168)  |  Terms (184)  |  Unknown (195)

It was his [Leibnitz’s] love of method and order, and the conviction that such order and harmony existed in the real world, and that our success in understanding it depended upon the degree and order which we could attain in our own thoughts, that originally was probably nothing more than a habit which by degrees grew into a formal rule. This habit was acquired by early occupation with legal and mathematical questions. We have seen how the theory of combinations and arrangements of elements had a special interest for him. We also saw how mathematical calculations served him as a type and model of clear and orderly reasoning, and how he tried to introduce method and system into logical discussions, by reducing to a small number of terms the multitude of compound notions he had to deal with. This tendency increased in strength, and even in those early years he elaborated the idea of a general arithmetic, with a universal language of symbols, or a characteristic which would be applicable to all reasoning processes, and reduce philosophical investigations to that simplicity and certainty which the use of algebraic symbols had introduced into mathematics.
A mental attitude such as this is always highly favorable for mathematical as well as for philosophical investigations. Wherever progress depends upon precision and clearness of thought, and wherever such can be gained by reducing a variety of investigations to a general method, by bringing a multitude of notions under a common term or symbol, it proves inestimable. It necessarily imports the special qualities of number—viz., their continuity, infinity and infinite divisibility—like mathematical quantities—and destroys the notion that irreconcilable contrasts exist in nature, or gaps which cannot be bridged over. Thus, in his letter to Arnaud, Leibnitz expresses it as his opinion that geometry, or the philosophy of space, forms a step to the philosophy of motion—i.e., of corporeal things—and the philosophy of motion a step to the philosophy of mind.
In Leibnitz (1884), 44-45. [The first sentence is reworded to better introduce the quotation. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Algebraic (5)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bring (95)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Combination (150)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Corporeal (5)  |  Deal (192)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Early (196)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Express (192)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Form (976)  |  Formal (37)  |  Gain (146)  |  Gap (36)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Grow (247)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Highly (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Import (5)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inestimable (4)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interest (416)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Language (308)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Legal (9)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Letter (117)  |  Logical (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Original (61)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Precision (72)  |  Probable (24)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prove (261)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Quotation (19)  |  Real World (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Serve (64)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Interest (2)  |  Step (234)  |  Strength (139)  |  Success (327)  |  Symbol (100)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Type (171)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wherever (51)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

It’s not getting any smarter out there. You have to come to terms with stupidity, and make it work for you.
In Marc J. Madou, Fundamentals of Microfabrication: the Science of Miniaturization (2nd ed., 2002), 259.
Science quotes on:  |  Smart (33)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Terms (184)  |  Work (1402)

Journalism must find the facts, it must not prejudge things in terms of conservatism or liberalism or radicalism; it must not decide in advance that it is to be conformist or non-conformist; it cannot fly in the face of facts without courting ultimate disaster.
Journalism must focus the facts; facts are not important for their own sake; they are important only as a basis for action; journalism must focus the facts it finds upon the issues its readers face.
Journalism must filter the facts; it must with conscientious care separate the facts from admixtures of prejudice, passion, partisanship, and selfish interest; facts that are diluted, colored, or perverted are valueless as a basis for action.
Journalism must face the facts; it must learn that the energy spent in trying to find ways to get around, under, or over the facts is wasted energy; facts have a ruthless way of winning the day sooner or later.
Journalism must follow the facts; journalism must say of facts as Job said, of God: though they slay us, yet shall we trust them; if the facts threaten to upset a paper's cherished policy, it always pays the journalist to re-examine his policy; that way lies realism, and realism is the ultimate good.
From address as president of the Wisconsin local chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, at its first annual Matrix Table (9 Jan 1926). quoted in 'Journalism News and Notes', in Robert S. Crawford (ed.), The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine (Feb 1926), 27, No. 4, 101. If you know any other example of Glenn Frank speaking about his five themes on facts, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Advance (298)  |  Basis (180)  |  Care (203)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Color (155)  |  Conscientious (7)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Energy (373)  |  Examine (84)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Filter (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fly (153)  |  Focus (36)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Issue (46)  |  Job (86)  |  Journalism (4)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Must (1525)  |  Paper (192)  |  Passion (121)  |  Pervert (7)  |  Policy (27)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Realism (7)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  Sake (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Separate (151)  |  Slaying (2)  |  Spent (85)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Trust (72)  |  Trying (144)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Upset (18)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winning (19)

Kepler’s principal goal was to explain the relationship between the existence of five planets (and their motions) and the five regular solids. It is customary to sneer at Kepler for this. … It is instructive to compare this with the current attempts to “explain” the zoology of elementary particles in terms of irreducible representations of Lie groups.
In Celestial Mechanics (1969), Vol. 1, 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Compare (76)  |  Current (122)  |  Customary (18)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Goal (155)  |  Irreducible (7)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lie Group (2)  |  Motion (320)  |  Particle (200)  |  Planet (402)  |  Principal (69)  |  Regular (48)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Representation (55)  |  Sneer (9)  |  Solid (119)  |  Terms (184)  |  Zoology (38)

Laboratory and discovery are related terms. Do away with laboratories, and the physical sciences will be become the image of the sterility of death.
Laboratoires et découvertes sont des termes corrélatifs. Supprimez les laboratoires, les sciences physiques deviendront l’image de la stérilité et de la mort.
In article 'The Budget of Science', Revue des Cours Scientifiques (1 Feb 1868) and published as a pamphlet, Some Reflections on Science in France. As translated in Patrice Debré and Elborg Forster (trans.), Louis Pasteur (2000), 143. Original French quote in René Vallery-Radot, La Vie de Pasteur (1900), 215. Note: Pasteur was fighting for a new laboratory building, but funding had been withdrawn—yet many millions were being spent to build an opera house. The full article, which was scorching, had been first sent to the newspaper, Moniteur in early Jan 1868, but it was declined as too politically controversial. Napoleon III was notified, and he was sympathetic. Other translations include: “Laboratories and discoveries are correlative terms. If you suppress laboratories, physical science will become stricken with barrenness and death.” In René Vallery-Radot and Mrs R. L. Devonshire (trans.) The Life of Pasteur (1902), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Death (406)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Image (97)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Related (5)  |  Sterility (10)  |  Terms (184)  |  Will (2350)

Lakatos (1978) coined the term immunization for a methodological decision to deflect a falsification from the hard core of a research program by making modifications in the protective belt.
In section, 'From Falsification to Methodological Caution', Ceteris Paribus in Conservative Belief Revision (2009), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Coined (3)  |  Falsification (11)  |  Immunization (3)  |  Imre Lakatos (30)  |  Methodology (14)  |  Modification (57)  |  Protection (41)  |  Research Program (3)

Let U = the University, G = Greek, and P = Professor, Then GP = Greek Professor; let this be reduced to its lowest terms and call the result J.
From an essay concerning the Regius Professorship of Greek, The New Method of Evaluating as Applied to π (1865), as quoted and cited in Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898), 159. Collingwood explains parenthetically, after "result J", “[i.e., Jowett]”, which was not in the original publication of “The New Method…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Greek (109)  |   Benjamin Jowett (11)  |  Lowest (10)  |  Professor (133)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Result (700)  |  Terms (184)  |  University (130)

Let's put it this way: I wouldn't buy gene-splicing stock for my grandmother.
Commenting to a reporter in 1981 on his doubt for the short-term possibilities of new gene-splicing companies.
'Shaping Life in the Lab'. In Time (9 Mar 1981).
Science quotes on:  |  Buy (21)  |  Company (63)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Gene (105)  |  Gene Splicing (5)  |  Grandmother (4)  |  Invest (20)  |  New (1273)  |  Short (200)  |  Stock (7)  |  Way (1214)

Looking back over the last thousand years, one can divide the development of the machine and the machine civilization into three successive but over-lapping and interpenetrating phases: eotechnic, paleotechnic, neotechnic … Speaking in terms of power and characteristic materials, the eotechnic phase is a water-and-wood complex: the paleotechnic phase is a coal-and-wood complex… The dawn-age of our modern technics stretches roughly from the year 1000 to 1750. It did not, of course, come suddenly to an end in the middle of the eighteenth century. A new movement appeared in industrial society which had been gathering headway almost unnoticed from the fifteenth century on: after 1750 industry passed into a new phase, with a different source of power, different materials, different objectives.
Technics and Civilisation (1934), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Age (509)  |  Back (395)  |  Century (319)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Coal (64)  |  Complex (202)  |  Course (413)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Divide (77)  |  End (603)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Headway (2)  |  Industry (159)  |  Last (425)  |  Looking (191)  |  Machine (271)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Movement (162)  |  New (1273)  |  Objective (96)  |  Paleotechnic (2)  |  Pass (241)  |  Phase (37)  |  Power (771)  |  Society (350)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Successive (73)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Technics (2)  |  Technology (281)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Water (503)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)

Man cannot have an effect on nature, cannot adopt any of her forces, if he does not know the natural laws in terms of measurement and numerical relations. Here also lies the strength of the national intelligence, which increases and decreases according to such knowledge. Knowledge and comprehension are the joy and justification of humanity; they are parts of the national wealth, often a replacement for the materials that nature has too sparcely dispensed. Those very people who are behind us in general industrial activity, in application and technical chemistry, in careful selection and processing of natural materials, such that regard for such enterprise does not permeate all classes, will inevitably decline in prosperity; all the more so were neighbouring states, in which science and the industrial arts have an active interrelationship, progress with youthful vigour.
Kosmos (1845), vol.1, 35. Quoted in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1970), vol. 6, 552.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Active (80)  |  Activity (218)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Behind (139)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Decline (28)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Environment (239)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Increase (225)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Joy (117)  |  Justification (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Measurement (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Numerical (39)  |  People (1031)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prosperity (31)  |  Regard (312)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Selection (130)  |  State (505)  |  Strength (139)  |  Terms (184)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Will (2350)

Man is not a machine, ... although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus. .... No other organism, and certainly no computer, can be made to confront genuine human problems in human terms. ... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the future, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns.
Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, (1976) 203 and 223. Also excerpted in Ronald Chrisley (ed.), Artificial Intelligence: Critical Concepts (2000), Vol. 3, 313 and 321. Note that the second ellipsis spans 8 pages.
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  Artificial Intelligence (12)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Computer (131)  |  Concern (239)  |  Confront (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Future (467)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Genus (27)  |  Human (1512)  |  Information (173)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Species (435)  |  Terms (184)  |  Way (1214)

Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.
'A Cuba Policy That's Stuck On Plan A', opinion column, The Washington Post (17 Apr 2009)
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quip (81)  |  Regard (312)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Test (221)

Mapping the human genome has been compared with putting a man on the moon, but I believe it is more than that. This is the outstanding achievement not only of our lifetime, but in terms of human history. A few months ago I compared the project to the invention of the wheel. On reflection, it is more than that. I can well imagine technology making the wheel obsolete. But this code is the essence of mankind, and as long as humans exists, this code is going to be important and will be used.
Quoted in the press release 'The first draft of the Book of Humankind has been read', 26 Jun 2000. On the Sanger Institute web site at www.sanger.ac.uk/HGP/draft2000/mainrelease.shtml
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Code (31)  |  Essence (85)  |  Exist (458)  |  Genome (15)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Genome (13)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Invention (400)  |  Long (778)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Month (91)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Project (77)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Technology (281)  |  Terms (184)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Will (2350)

MATHEMATICS … the general term for the various applications of mathematical thought, the traditional field of which is number and quantity. It has been usual to define mathematics as “the science of discrete and continuous magnitude.”
Opening statement in article 'Mathematics', Encyclopedia Britannica (1911, 11th ed.), Vol. 17, 878. Whitehead then indicated this was an inadequate definition, which he then discussed at length and tried to give an improved definition later in the article. See the quote beginning “Definition of Mathematics…” on the Alfred North Whitehead Quotes page on this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Define (53)  |  Discrete (11)  |  Field (378)  |  General (521)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Thought (995)  |  Traditional (16)  |  Various (205)

Mathematics is a structure providing observers with a framework upon which to base healthy, informed, and intelligent judgment. Data and information are slung about us from all directions, and we are to use them as a basis for informed decisions. … Ability to critically analyze an argument purported to be logical, free of the impact of the loaded meanings of the terms involved, is basic to an informed populace.
In 'Mathematics Is an Edifice, Not a Toolbox', Notices of the AMS (Oct 1996), 43, No. 10, 1108.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Analyze (12)  |  Argument (145)  |  Base (120)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basis (180)  |  Critical (73)  |  Data (162)  |  Decision (98)  |  Direction (185)  |  Framework (33)  |  Free (239)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Impact (45)  |  Inform (50)  |  Information (173)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Loaded (4)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Observer (48)  |  Populace (3)  |  Provide (79)  |  Purport (3)  |  Sling (4)  |  Structure (365)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)

Mathematics, the science of the ideal, becomes the means of investigating, understanding and making known the world of the real. The complex is expressed in terms of the simple. From one point of view mathematics may be defined as the science of successive substitutions of simpler concepts for more complex.
In A Scrap-book of Elementary Mathematics (1908), 215.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concept (242)  |  Define (53)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Express (192)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Real (159)  |  Simple (426)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Successive (73)  |  Terms (184)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

Medicine is essentially a learned profession. Its literature is ancient, and connects it with the most learned periods of antiquity; and its terminology continues to be Greek or Latin. You cannot name a part of the body, and scarcely a disease, without the use of a classical term. Every structure bears upon it the impress of learning, and is a silent appeal to the student to cultivate an acquaintance with the sources from which the nomenclature of his profession is derived.
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), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bear (162)  |  Body (557)  |  Classical (49)  |  Connect (126)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Disease (340)  |  Greek (109)  |  Impress (66)  |  Latin (44)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Literature (116)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Period (200)  |  Profession (108)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Source (101)  |  Structure (365)  |  Student (317)  |  Terminology (12)  |  Use (771)

Men thought dialectically long before they knew what dialectics was, just as they spoke prose long before the term prose existed
In Friedrick Engels and Austin Lewis (trans., ed.), Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Dühring", (1907), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Before (8)  |  Dialectic (6)  |  Exist (458)  |  Know (1538)  |  Long (778)  |  Prose (11)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thought (995)

Most classifications, whether of inanimate objects or of organisms, are hierarchical. There are “higher” and “lower” categories, there are higher and lower ranks. What is usually overlooked is that the use of the term “hierarchy” is ambiguous, and that two fundamentally different kinds of arrangements have been designated as hierarchical. A hierarchy can be either exclusive or inclusive. Military ranks from private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, up to general are a typical example of an exclusive hierarchy. A lower rank is not a subdivision of a higher rank; thus, lieutenants are not a subdivision of captains. The scala naturae, which so strongly dominated thinking from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, is another good illustration of an exclusive hierarchy. Each level of perfection was considered an advance (or degradation) from the next lower (or higher) level in the hierarchy, but did not include it.
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (1982), 205-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Ambiguous (14)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Captain (16)  |  Century (319)  |  Classification (102)  |  Consider (428)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Different (595)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Include (93)  |  Inclusive (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Level (69)  |  Military (45)  |  Most (1728)  |  Next (238)  |  Object (438)  |  Organism (231)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Rank (69)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)

Much later, when I discussed the problem with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life. But this “blunder,” rejected by Einstein, is still sometimes used by cosmologists even today, and the cosmological constant denoted by the Greek letter Λ rears its ugly head again and again and again.
My World Line (1970). Cited in Edward Robert Harrison, Cosmology: the Science of the Universe (2000), 379, which adds: “The Λ force is referred to by various names, such as the cosmological constant, cosmological term, cosmical constant or cosmical term.”
Science quotes on:  |  Blunder (21)  |  Constant (148)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Cosmologist (5)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Greek (109)  |  Head (87)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Problem (731)  |  Rear (7)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Remark (28)  |  Still (614)  |  Today (321)  |  Ugly (14)

My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term “magnitude,” which is used for the brightness of a star.
From interview with Henry Spall, as in an abridged version of Earthquake Information Bulletin (Jan-Feb 1980), 12, No. 1, that is on the USGS website.
Science quotes on:  |  Amateur (22)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Classification (102)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Interest (416)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Richter Scale (4)  |  Star (460)

My experiments proved that the radiation of uranium compounds ... is an atomic property of the element of uranium. Its intensity is proportional to the quantity of uranium contained in the compound, and depends neither on conditions of chemical combination, nor on external circumstances, such as light or temperature.
... The radiation of thorium has an intensity of the same order as that of uranium, and is, as in the case of uranium, an atomic property of the element.
It was necessary at this point to find a new term to define this new property of matter manifested by the elements of uranium and thorium. I proposed the word radioactivity which has since become generally adopted; the radioactive elements have been called radio elements.
In Pierre Curie, with the Autobiographical Notes of Marie Curie, trans. Charlotte and Vernon Kellogg (1923), 96. Also in reprint (2012) 45-46.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compound (117)  |  Condition (362)  |  Depend (238)  |  Element (322)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomencalture (4)  |  Order (638)  |  Point (584)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thorium (5)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Word (650)

Natural selection produces systems that function no better than necessary. It results in ad hoc adaptive solutions to immediate problems. Whatever enhances fitness is selected. The product of natural selection is not perfection but adequacy, not final answers but limited, short-term solutions.
In 'The role of natural history in contemporary biology', BioScience (1986), 36, 325.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptive (3)  |  Adequacy (10)  |  Answer (389)  |  Better (493)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Final (121)  |  Fitness (9)  |  Function (235)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Problem (731)  |  Produce (117)  |  Product (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Select (45)  |  Selection (130)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Term (3)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  System (545)  |  Whatever (234)

Nature does not consist entirely, or even largely, of problems designed by a Grand Examiner to come out neatly in finite terms, and whatever subject we tackle the first need is to overcome timidity about approximating.
As co-author with Bertha Swirles Jeffreys, in Methods of Mathematical Physics (1946, 1999), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Approximate (25)  |  Consist (223)  |  Design (203)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Examiner (5)  |  Finite (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Grand (29)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neat (5)  |  Need (320)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Problem (731)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tackle (6)  |  Terms (184)  |  Timidity (5)  |  Whatever (234)

Nature vibrates with rhythms, climatic and diastrophic, those finding stratigraphic expression ranging in period from the rapid oscillation of surface waters, recorded in ripple-mark, to those long-deferred stirrings of the deep imprisoned titans which have divided earth history into periods and eras. The flight of time is measured by the weaving of composite rhythms- day and night, calm and storm, summer and winter, birth and death such as these are sensed in the brief life of man. But the career of the earth recedes into a remoteness against which these lesser cycles are as unavailing for the measurement of that abyss of time as would be for human history the beating of an insect's wing. We must seek out, then, the nature of those longer rhythms whose very existence was unknown until man by the light of science sought to understand the earth. The larger of these must be measured in terms of the smaller, and the smaller must be measured in terms of years.
'Rhythm and the Measurement of Geologic Time', Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 1917, 28,746.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Against (332)  |  Birth (154)  |  Brief (37)  |  Calm (32)  |  Career (86)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Death (406)  |  Deep (241)  |  Divided (50)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expression (181)  |  Flight (101)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imprison (11)  |  Insect (89)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Period (200)  |  Recede (11)  |  Record (161)  |  Remoteness (9)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Seek (218)  |  Storm (56)  |  Summer (56)  |  Surface (223)  |  Terms (184)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vibrate (7)  |  Water (503)  |  Weaving (6)  |  Wing (79)  |  Winter (46)  |  Year (963)

Ninety-nine people out of a hundred have not seriously considered what they mean by the term “exist” nor how a thing qualifies itself to be labelled real.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Exist (458)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Mean (810)  |  People (1031)  |  Thing (1914)

No experimental result can ever kill a theory: any theory can be saved from counterinstances either by some auxiliary hypothesis or by a suitable reinterpretation of its terms.
In 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes', in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London 1965 (1970), Vol. 4, 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Kill (100)  |  Result (700)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)

No, this trick wont work ... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Explain (334)  |  First (1302)  |  Important (229)  |  Love (328)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Terms (184)  |  Trick (36)  |  Work (1402)

Not only are there meaningless questions, but many of the problems with which the human intellect has tortured itself turn out to be only 'pseudo problems,' because they can be formulated only in terms of questions which are meaningless. Many of the traditional problems of philosophy, of religion, or of ethics, are of this character. Consider, for example, the problem of the freedom of the will. You maintain that you are free to take either the right- or the left-hand fork in the road. I defy you to set up a single objective criterion by which you can prove after you have made the turn that you might have made the other. The problem has no meaning in the sphere of objective activity; it only relates to my personal subjective feelings while making the decision.
The Nature of Physical Theory (1936), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Character (259)  |  Consider (428)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Decision (98)  |  Defy (11)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Making (300)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Objective (96)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prove (261)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Right (473)  |  Set (400)  |  Single (365)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Subjective (20)  |  Terms (184)  |  Turn (454)  |  Will (2350)

Notable enough, however, are the controversies over the series 1 – 1 + 1 – 1 + 1 – … whose sum was given by Leibniz as 1/2, although others disagree. … Understanding of this question is to be sought in the word “sum”; this idea, if thus conceived—namely, the sum of a series is said to be that quantity to which it is brought closer as more terms of the series are taken—has relevance only for convergent series, and we should in general give up the idea of sum for divergent series.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Closer (43)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Convergent (3)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Divergent (6)  |  Enough (341)  |  General (521)  |  Idea (881)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Relevance (18)  |  Series (153)  |  Sum (103)  |  Terms (184)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Word (650)

Obviously we biologists should fit our methods to our materials. An interesting response to this challenge has been employed particularly by persons who have entered biology from the physical sciences or who are distressed by the variability in biology; they focus their research on inbred strains of genetically homogeneous laboratory animals from which, to the maximum extent possible, variability has been eliminated. These biologists have changed the nature of the biological system to fit their methods. Such a bold and forthright solution is admirable, but it is not for me. Before I became a professional biologist, I was a boy naturalist, and I prefer a contrasting approach; to change the method to fit the system. This approach requires that one employ procedures which allow direct scientific utilization of the successful long-term evolutionary experiments which are documented by the fascinating diversity and variability of the species of animals which occupy the earth. This is easy to say and hard to do.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Allow (51)  |  Animal (651)  |  Approach (112)  |  Become (821)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Biology (232)  |  Bold (22)  |  Boy (100)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Change (639)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distress (9)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Document (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Employ (115)  |  Enter (145)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Fit (139)  |  Focus (36)  |  Genetically (2)  |  Hard (246)  |  Homogeneous (17)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Material (366)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Method (531)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obviously (11)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Professional (77)  |  Require (229)  |  Research (753)  |  Response (56)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Solution (282)  |  Species (435)  |  Strain (13)  |  Successful (134)  |  System (545)  |  Utilization (16)  |  Variability (5)

Of all investments into the future, the conquest of space demands the greatest efforts and the longest-term commitment… but it also offers the greatest reward: none less than a universe.
As quoted, without citation, in David William English, The Air Up There (2003), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Commitment (28)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Demand (131)  |  Effort (243)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Investment (15)  |  Less (105)  |  Offer (142)  |  Reward (72)  |  Space (523)  |  Universe (900)

On careful examination the physicist finds that in the sense in which he uses language no meaning at all can be attached to a physical concept which cannot ultimately be described in terms of some sort of measurement. A body has position only in so far as its position can be measured; if a position cannot in principle be measured, the concept of position applied to the body is meaningless, or in other words, a position of the body does not exist. Hence if both the position and velocity of electron cannot in principle be measured, the electron cannot have the same position and velocity; position and velocity as expressions of properties which an electron can simultaneously have are meaningless.
Reflections of a Physicist (1950), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Electron (96)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expression (181)  |  Find (1014)  |  Language (308)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Principle (530)  |  Sense (785)  |  Terms (184)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Use (771)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Word (650)

One cannot explain words without making incursions into the sciences themselves, as is evident from dictionaries; and, conversely, one cannot present a science without at the same time defining its terms.
'Of the Division of the Sciences' (1765), Book 4, Chap. 21, in New Essays on Human Understanding, trans. and ed. Peter Remnal (1981), 522.
Science quotes on:  |  Definition (238)  |  Dictionary (15)  |  Evident (92)  |  Explain (334)  |  Making (300)  |  Present (630)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)

Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arise (162)  |  Contain (68)  |  Data (162)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Discern (35)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Evil (122)  |  Factual (8)  |  Failure (176)  |  Frame (26)  |  Good (906)  |  Good And Evil (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humanities (21)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Insight (107)  |  Lack (127)  |  Manner (62)  |  Merely (315)  |  Message (53)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Passively (3)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Power (771)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Read (308)  |  Record (161)  |  State (505)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Our federal income tax law defines the tax y to be paid in terms of the income x; it does so in a clumsy enough way by pasting several linear functions together, each valid in another interval or bracket of income. An archaeologist who, five thousand years from now, shall unearth some of our income tax returns together with relics of engineering works and mathematical books, will probably date them a couple of centuries earlier, certainly before Galileo and Vieta.
From Address (1940), given at the Bicentennial Conference at the University of Pennsylvania, 'The Mathematical Way of Thinking'. Collected in Hermann Weyl and Peter Pesic (ed.), Levels of Infinity: Selected Writings on Mathematics and Philosophy (2012), 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Archaeologist (18)  |  Book (413)  |  Bracket (2)  |  Century (319)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Clumsy (7)  |  Couple (9)  |  Date (14)  |  Define (53)  |  Earlier (9)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enough (341)  |  Federal (6)  |  Function (235)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Income (18)  |  Interval (14)  |  Law (913)  |  Linear (13)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Paste (4)  |  Pay (45)  |  Probably (50)  |  Relic (8)  |  Return (133)  |  Several (33)  |  Tax (27)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Together (392)  |  Unearth (2)  |  Valid (12)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Our job in physics is to see things simply, to understand a great many complicated phenomena in a unified way, in terms of a few simple principles.
In Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1989), 'Conceptual Foundations of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions.'
Science quotes on:  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Great (1610)  |  Job (86)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unification (11)  |  Way (1214)

Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but it is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent; since a part of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent; and therefore in strict language it cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent-system. (1794)
Zoonomia, Or, The Laws of Organic Life, in three parts (1803), Vol. 1, 395.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Branch (155)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Language (308)  |  New (1273)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Owing (39)  |  Parent (80)  |  Production (190)  |  Retain (57)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

Palaeontologists cannot live by uniformitarianism alone. This may be termed the Phenomenon of the Fallibility of the Fossil Record.
In The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (1973), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Fallibility (4)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fossil Record (12)  |  Live (650)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Record (161)  |  Uniformitarianism (9)

People in the computer industry use the term ‘user,’ which to them means ‘idiot.’.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Industry (159)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  People (1031)  |  Use (771)  |  User (5)

People were pretty well spellbound by what Bohr said… While I was very much impressed by [him], his arguments were mainly of a qualitative nature, and I was not able to really pinpoint the facts behind them. What I wanted was statements which could be expressed in terms of equations, and Bohr's work very seldom provided such statements. I am really not sure how much later my work was influenced by these lectures of Bohr's... He certainly did not have a direct influence because he did not stimulate one to think of new equations.
Recalling the occasion in May 1925 (a year before receiving his Ph.D.) when he met Niels Bohr who was in Cambridge to give a talk on the fundamental difficulties of the quantum theory.
In History of Twentieth Century Physics (1977), 109. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Behind (139)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Direct (228)  |  Equation (138)  |  Express (192)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Influence (231)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Occasion (87)  |  People (1031)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Statement (148)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Perhaps I can best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of a journey through a dark unexplored mansion. You enter the first room of the mansion and it’s completely dark. You stumble around bumping into the furniture, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it’s all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were. Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark. So each of these breakthroughs, while sometimes they’re momentary, sometimes over a period of a day or two, they are the culmination of—and couldn’t exist without—the many months of stumbling around in the dark that proceed them.
Quoted in interview for website for PBS TV Nova program, 'The Proof'.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Breakthrough (18)  |  Completely (137)  |  Culmination (5)  |  Dark (145)  |  Describe (132)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Furniture (8)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Journey (48)  |  Learn (672)  |  Light (635)  |  Mansion (4)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Month (91)  |  Move (223)  |  Next (238)  |  Period (200)  |  Proceed (134)  |  See (1094)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spend (97)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Terms (184)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)

Perhaps the least inadequate description of the general scope of modern Pure Mathematics—I will not call it a definition—would be to say that it deals with form, in a very general sense of the term; this would include algebraic form, functional relationship, the relations of order in any ordered set of entities such as numbers, and the analysis of the peculiarities of form of groups of operations.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sheffield, Section A, Nature (1 Sep 1910), 84, 287.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Call (781)  |  Deal (192)  |  Definition (238)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Entity (37)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Group (83)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Include (93)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Order (638)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Relation (166)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Say (989)  |  Scope (44)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Will (2350)

Perhaps we see equations as simple because they are easily expressed in terms of mathematical notation already invented at an earlier stage of development of the science, and thus what appears to us as elegance of description really reflects the interconnectedness of Nature's laws at different levels.
Nobel Banquet Speech (10 Dec 1969), in Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.),Les Prix Nobel en 1969 (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Description (89)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Early (196)  |  Ease (40)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Equation (138)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Invention (400)  |  Law (913)  |  Level (69)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notation (28)  |  Reflection (93)  |  See (1094)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Stage (152)  |  Terms (184)

Poincaré was a vigorous opponent of the theory that all mathematics can be rewritten in terms of the most elementary notions of classical logic; something more than logic, he believed, makes mathematics what it is.
In Men of Mathematics (1937), 552.
Science quotes on:  |  Classical (49)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notion (120)  |  Opponent (23)  |  Henri Poincaré (99)  |  Something (718)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)

Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patient’s renal and cardiopulmonary status. This spectacular success was a clear demonstration that organ transplantation could be life-saving. In a way, it was spying into the future because we had achieved our long-term goal by bypassing, but not solving, the issue of biological incompatibility.
Referring to the pioneering first kidney transplant. It was well-matched since it was between twins. In Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1990). Printed in Tore Frängsmyr and Jan Lindsten (eds.), Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1981-1990 (1993).
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Biological (137)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Function (235)  |  Future (467)  |  Goal (155)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Incompatibility (3)  |  Issue (46)  |  Kidney (19)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Operation (221)  |  Organ (118)  |  Patient (209)  |  Renal (4)  |  Solving (6)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Status (35)  |  Success (327)  |  Transplant (12)  |  Transplantation (4)  |  Way (1214)

Psychology, as the behaviorist views it, is a purely objective, experimental branch of natural science which needs introspection as little as do the sciences of chemistry and physics. It is granted that the behavior of animals can be investigated without appeal to consciousness. Heretofore the viewpoint has been that such data have value only in so far as they can be interpreted by analogy in terms of consciousness. The position is taken here that the behavior of man and the behavior of animals must be considered in the same plane.
In Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913), 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Data (162)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Grant (76)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Introspection (6)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Need (320)  |  Objective (96)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plane (22)  |  Position (83)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Purely (111)  |  Terms (184)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Viewpoint (13)

Pure Mathematics is the class of all propositions of the form “p implies q,” where p and q are propositions containing one or more variables, the same in the two propositions, and neither p nor q contains any constants except logical constants. And logical constants are all notions definable in terms of the following: Implication, the relation of a term to a class of which it is a member, the notion of such that, the notion of relation, and such further notions as may be involved in the general notion of propositions of the above form. In addition to these, mathematics uses a notion which is not a constituent of the propositions which it considers, namely the notion of truth.
In 'Definition of Pure Mathematics', Principles of Mathematics (1903), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Class (168)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constant (148)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Definition (238)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Implication (25)  |  Involved (90)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Notion (120)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Relation (166)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Variable (37)

Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.
In The Tao of Physics (1975), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Atom (381)  |  Basic (144)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Essential (210)  |  Final (121)  |  Human (1512)  |  Include (93)  |  Independence (37)  |  Independently (24)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Observational (15)  |  Observer (48)  |  Oneness (6)  |  Part (235)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Process (439)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Relation (166)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understood (155)  |  Unit (36)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Web (17)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Reagents are regarded as acting by virtue of a constitutional affinity either for electrons or for nuclei... the terms electrophilic (electron-seeking) and nucleophilic (nucleus-seeking) are suggested... and the organic molecule, in the activation necessary for reaction, is therefore required to develop at the seat of attack either a high or low electron density as the case may be.
'Significance of Tautomerism and of the Reactions of Aromatic Compounds in the Electronic Theory of Organic Relations', Journal of the Chemical Society (1933), 136, 1121, fn.
Science quotes on:  |  Activation (6)  |  Affinity (27)  |  Attack (86)  |  Density (25)  |  Develop (278)  |  Electron (96)  |  High (370)  |  Low (86)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Organic (161)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reagent (8)  |  Regard (312)  |  Required (108)  |  Terms (184)  |  Virtue (117)

Science aims at constructing a world which shall be symbolic of the world of commonplace experience. It is not at all necessary that every individual symbol that is used should represent something in common experience or even something explicable in terms of common experience. The man in the street is always making this demand for concrete explanation of the things referred to in science; but of necessity he must be disappointed. It is like our experience in learning to read. That which is written in a book is symbolic of a story in real life. The whole intention of the book is that ultimately a reader will identify some symbol, say BREAD, with one of the conceptions of familiar life. But it is mischievous to attempt such identifications prematurely, before the letters are strung into words and the words into sentences. The symbol A is not the counterpart of anything in familiar life.
From 'Introduction', The Nature of the Physical World (1928), xiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Book (413)  |  Bread (42)  |  Common (447)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Conception (160)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Counterpart (11)  |  Demand (131)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Identification (20)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intention (46)  |  Learning (291)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Read (308) &n