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: “Politics is more difficult than physics.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index T > Category: Three

Three Quotes (10 quotes)

All over the world there lingers on the memory of a giant tree, the primal tree, rising up from the centre of the Earth to the heavens and ordering the universe around it. It united the three worlds: its roots plunged down into subterranean abysses, Its loftiest branches touched the empyrean. Thanks to the Tree, it became possible to breathe the air; to all the creatures that then appeared on Earth it dispensed its fruit, ripened by the sun and nourished by the water which it drew from the soil. From the sky it attracted the lightning from which man made fire and, beckoning skyward, where clouds gathered around its fall. The Tree was the source of all life, and of all regeneration. Small wonder then that tree-worship was so prevalent in ancient times.
From 'L'Arbre Sacre' ('The Sacred Tree'), UNESCO Courier (Jan 1989), 4. Epigraph to Chap 1, in Kenton Miller and Laura Tangley, Trees of Life: Saving Tropical Forests and Their Biological Wealt (1991), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Air (366)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Appeared (4)  |  Attracted (3)  |  Beckoning (4)  |  Branch (155)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Centre (31)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dispense (10)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Empyrean (3)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Gather (76)  |  Giant (73)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Linger (14)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Nourished (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prevalent (4)  |  Primal (5)  |  Regeneration (5)  |  Rising (44)  |  Root (121)  |  Sky (174)  |  Skyward (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Soil (98)  |  Source (101)  |  Subterranean (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tree (269)  |  United (15)  |  Universe (900)  |  Water (503)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Worship (32)

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. [Caution: expressed in this wording, it is likely misattributed.]
Schopenhauer did write a different reflection with this theme, much less tersely, on how the acceptance of truth has “only one short victory celebration is granted between the two long periods where it is despised as paradox and condemned as trivial.” See the Introduction to The World as Will and Representation (1819), xvi. The “three stages” quote is included here so it may be found with this caution: it is questionable that Schopenhauer expressed this idea with this wording. Although widely repeated, Webmaster has not yet found any citation to a primary source for these words. (Schopenhauer was German, so any quote in English represents a translation.) According to Ralph Keys, diligent search by scholars has found no written source in German, either. The sentiment has been variously restated and attributed to other authors. A somewhat better-documented version of the “three stages of truth” is attributed to Louis Agassiz, though still with only second-person references. See Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier (2006), 225-226.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Being (1276)  |  Caution (24)  |  Evident (92)  |  Express (192)  |  First (1302)  |  Misattributed (19)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Stage (152)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)

Certainlie these things agree,
The Priest, the Lawyer, & Death all three:
Death takes both the weak and the strong.
The lawyer takes from both right and wrong,
And the priest from living and dead has his Fee.
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1737).
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Death (406)  |  Fee (9)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Living (492)  |  Priest (29)  |  Right (473)  |  Strong (182)  |  Taking (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wrong (246)

If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family.
Attributed without further citation. In Edmund Fuller, Thesaurus of Quotations (1941), 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternate (3)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Family (101)  |  Husband (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Wife (41)

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two, ten, or twenty centuries for us,—some of them,—and are eager to give us a sign and unbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo that they must not speak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has dressed them, like battalions of infantry, in coat and jacket of one cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the right one is to be computed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation and Combination,—not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half a million caskets, all alike.
In essay 'Books', collected in Society and Solitude (1870, 1871), 171
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Battalion (2)  |  Box (22)  |  Century (319)  |  Chance (244)  |  Choice (114)  |  Coat (5)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compute (19)  |  Cut (116)  |  Dressed (3)  |  Eager (17)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hit (20)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Imprison (11)  |  Jacket (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Library (53)  |  Limbo (2)  |  Million (124)  |  Must (1525)  |  Paper (192)  |  Permutation (5)  |  Right (473)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sign (63)  |  Speak (240)  |  Surround (33)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Two (936)  |  Waiting (42)

In design, people like Buckminster Fuller amazed me at the levels at which he could think. He could think molecularly. And he could think at the almost galactic scale. And the idea that somebody could actually talk about molecules and talk about buildings and structures and talk about space just amazed me. As I get older–I’ll be 60 next year–what I’ve discovered is that I find myself in those three realms too.
In interview with Kerry A. Dolan, 'William McDonough On Cradle-to-Cradle Design', Forbes (4 Aug 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Age (509)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Building (158)  |  Design (203)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  R. Buckminster Fuller (16)  |  Galactic (6)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Level (69)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Myself (211)  |  Next (238)  |  People (1031)  |  Realm (87)  |  Scale (122)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Talk (108)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Year (963)

The mathematics of cooperation of men and tools is interesting. Separated men trying their individual experiments contribute in proportion to their numbers and their work may be called mathematically additive. The effect of a single piece of apparatus given to one man is also additive only, but when a group of men are cooperating, as distinct from merely operating, their work raises with some higher power of the number than the first power. It approaches the square for two men and the cube for three. Two men cooperating with two different pieces of apparatus, say a special furnace and a pyrometer or a hydraulic press and new chemical substances, are more powerful than their arithmetical sum. These facts doubtless assist as assets of a research laboratory.
Quoted from a speech delivered at the fiftieth anniversary of granting of M.I.T's charter, in Guy Suits, 'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 352.
Science quotes on:  |  Additive (2)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Cube (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Group (83)  |  Higher (37)  |  Hydraulic (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Press (21)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Special (188)  |  Square (73)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sum (103)  |  Tool (129)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)

The most remarkable feature about the magnitude scale was that it worked at all and that it could be extended on a worldwide basis. It was originally envisaged as a rather rough-and-ready procedure by which we could grade earthquakes. We would have been happy if we could have assigned just three categories, large, medium, and small; the point is, we wanted to avoid personal judgments. It actually turned out to be quite a finely tuned scale.
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:  |  Actually (27)  |  Assigned (2)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Basis (180)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extended (4)  |  Feature (49)  |  Finely (3)  |  Grade (12)  |  Happy (108)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Large (398)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Medium (15)  |  Most (1728)  |  Originally (7)  |  Personal (75)  |  Point (584)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Richter Scale (4)  |  Scale (122)  |  Small (489)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned Out (5)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worked (2)  |  Worldwide (19)

There are three creative ideas which, each in its turn, have been central to science. They are the idea of order, the idea of causes, and the idea of chance.
From The Common Sense of Science (1951), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Central (81)  |  Chance (244)  |  Creative (144)  |  Idea (881)  |  Order (638)  |  Turn (454)

Three apples changed the world, Adam's apple, Newton's apple, and Steve's apple.
[Tweeted tribute for Steve Jobs, co-founder the Apple computer company.]
Anonymous
In Fouad Ajami, 'The Arab World's Unknown Son', Wall Street Journal (12 Oct 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Adam (7)  |  Apple (46)  |  Company (63)  |  Computer (131)  |  Founder (26)  |  Job (86)  |  Steve Jobs (6)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Obituary (11)  |  Tribute (10)  |  World (1850)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.