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: “The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index W > Category: Whenever

Whenever Quotes (81 quotes)

... [I]nfectious disease is merely a disagreeable instance of a widely prevalent tendency of all living creatures to save themselves the bother of building, by their own efforts, the things they require. Whenever they find it possible to take advantage of the constructive labors of others, this is the path of least resistance. The plant does the work with its roots and its green leaves. The cow eats the plant. Man eats both of them; and bacteria (or investment bankers) eat the man. ...
Rats, Lice and History (1935).
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Both (496)  |  Building (158)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Cow (42)  |  Creature (242)  |  Disagreeable (5)  |  Disease (340)  |  Eat (108)  |  Effort (243)  |  Find (1014)  |  Green (65)  |  Investment (15)  |  Labor (200)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possible (560)  |  Require (229)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Root (121)  |  Save (126)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)

[Decimal currency is desirable because] by that means all calculations of interest, exchange, insurance, and the like are rendered much more simple and accurate, and, of course, more within the power of the great mass of people. Whenever such things require much labor, time, and reflection, the greater number who do not know, are made the dupes of the lesser number who do.
Letter to Congress (15 Jan 1782). 'Coinage Scheme Proposed by Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance', from MS. letters and reports of the Superintendent of Finance, No, 137, Vol. 1, 289-300. Reprinted as Appendix, in Executive Documents, Senate of the U.S., Third Session of the Forty-Fifth Congress, 1878-79 (1879), 430.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Course (413)  |  Currency (3)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dupe (5)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Insurance (12)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Render (96)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

[I predict] the electricity generated by water power is the only thing that is going to keep future generations from freezing. Now we use coal whenever we produce electric power by steam engine, but there will be a time when there’ll be no more coal to use. That time is not in the very distant future. … Oil is too insignificant in its available supply to come into much consideration.
As quoted in 'Electricity Will Keep The World From Freezing Up', New York Times (12 Nov 1911), SM4.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Distant (33)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Generator (2)  |  Hydroelectricity (2)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  More (2558)  |  Oil (67)  |  Power (771)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Produce (117)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Power (6)  |  Will (2350)

[M]y work, which I’ve done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.
Letter (27 Jun 1716) thanking the University of Louvain for ending him a medal designed in honour of his research. (Leeuwenhoek was then in his 84th year.) As cited by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow in The Conquest of Epidemic Disease: A Chapter in the History of Ideas (), 156.
Science quotes on:  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Craving (5)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Duty (71)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gain (146)  |  Inform (50)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notice (81)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  People (1031)  |  Praise (28)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Research (753)  |  Reside (25)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen. Spricht man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie alles in ihre eigene Sprache, und so wird es alsobald etwas ganz anderes.
Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchmen. Whenever you say anything or talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and right away it is something completely different.
Quoted by Christiane Senn-Fennell, 'Oral and Written Communication', in Ian Westbury et al. (eds.), Teaching as a Reflective Practice (2000), 225.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Completely (137)  |  Different (595)  |  Frenchman (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Talk (108)  |  Translate (21)

The Charms of Statistics.—It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown into its lakes, two nuisances would be got rid of at once. An Average is but a solitary fact, whereas if a single other fact be added to it, an entire Normal Scheme, which nearly corresponds to the observed one, starts potentially into existence. Some people hate the very name of statistics, but I find them full of beauty and interest. Whenever they are not brutalised, but delicately handled by the higher methods, and are warily interpreted, their power of dealing with complicated phenomena is extraordinary. They are the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of man.
Natural Inheritance (1889), 62-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Charm (54)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Cut (116)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dull (58)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flat (34)  |  Hate (68)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lake (36)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Name (359)  |  Native (41)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nuisance (10)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Single (365)  |  Soul (235)  |  Start (237)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Through (846)  |  Tool (129)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Variety (138)  |  View (496)  |  Warily (2)  |  Why (491)

Toutes les fois que dans une équation finale on trouve deux quantités inconnues, on a un lieu, l'extrémité de l'une d’elles décrivant une ligne droite ou courbe. La ligne droite est simple et unique dans son genre; les espèces des courbes sont en nombre indéfini, cercle, parabole, hyperbole, ellipse, etc.
Whenever two unknown magnitudes appear in a final equation, we have a locus, the extremity of one of the unknown magnitudes describing a straight line or a curve. The straight line is simple and unique; the classes of curves are indefinitely many,—circle, parabola, hyperbola, ellipse, etc.
Introduction aux Lieux Plans et Solides (1679) collected in OEuvres de Fermat (1896), Vol. 3, 85. Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci, as translated by Joseph Seidlin in David E. Smith(ed.)A Source Book in Mathematics (1959), 389. Alternate translation using Google Translate: “Whenever in a final equation there are two unknown quantities, there is a locus, the end of one of them describing a straight line or curve. The line is simple and unique in its kind, species curves are indefinite in number,—circle, parabola, hyperbola, ellipse, etc.”
Science quotes on:  |  Circle (117)  |  Curve (49)  |  Describe (132)  |  Ellipse (8)  |  Equation (138)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Final (121)  |  Locus (5)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Parabola (2)  |  Simple (426)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Two (936)  |  Unique (72)  |  Unknown (195)

A lot of scientific papers do deal with matters of atheoretical fact ... for example, whenever somebody finds a new “world's largest dinosaur,” which has only slightly more scientific relevance than shooting the record moose. In short, not everything that gets published in scientific journals bears the distinctive hallmarks of science.
In 'Paleoanthropology: Science or Mythical Charter?', Journal of Anthropological Research (Summer 2002), 58, No. 2, 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Atheoretical (2)  |  Bear (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finding (34)  |  Hallmark (6)  |  Journal (31)  |  Largest (39)  |  Lot (151)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moose (4)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Paper (192)  |  Publish (42)  |  Record (161)  |  Relevance (18)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Short (200)  |  World (1850)

An inventor is an opportunist, one who takes occasion by the hand; who, having seen where some want exists, successfully applies the right means to attain the desired end. The means may be largely, or even wholly, something already known, or there may be a certain originality or discovery in the means employed. But in every case the inventor uses the work of others. If I may use a metaphor, I should liken him to the man who essays the conquest of some virgin alp. At the outset he uses the beaten track, and, as he progresses in the ascent, he uses the steps made by those who have preceded him, whenever they lead in the right direction; and it is only after the last footprints have died out that he takes ice-axe in hand and cuts the remaining steps, few or many, that lift him to the crowning height which is his goal.
In Kenneth Raydon Swan, Sir Joseph Swan (1946), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Alp (9)  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Ascent (7)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Beaten Track (4)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Crown (39)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Desire (212)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Employ (115)  |  End (603)  |  Essay (27)  |  Exist (458)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Goal (155)  |  Height (33)  |  Ice (58)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leading (17)  |  Lift (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Opportunist (3)  |  Originality (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outset (7)  |  Preceded (2)  |  Progress (492)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Right (473)  |  Something (718)  |  Step (234)  |  Success (327)  |  Track (42)  |  Use (771)  |  Virgin (11)  |  Want (504)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Work (1402)

Anaximenes ... said that infinite air was the principle, from which the things that are becoming, and that are, and that shall be, and gods and things divine, all come into being, and the rest from its products. The form of air is of this kind: whenever it is most equable it is invisible to sight, but is revealed by the cold and the hot and the damp and by movement. It is always in motion; for things that change do not change unless there be movement. Through becoming denser or finer it has different appearances; for when it is dissolved into what is finer it becomes fire, while winds, again, are air that is becoming condensed, and cloud is produced from air by felting. When it is condensed still more, water is produced; with a further degree of condensation earth is produced, and when condensed as far as possible, stones. The result is that the most influential components of the generation are opposites, hot and cold.
Hippolytus, Refutation, 1.7.1. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds.), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Anaximander (5)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cold (115)  |  Component (51)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  God (776)  |  Hot (63)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Kind (564)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Movement (162)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Product (166)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Sight (135)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)

At night I would return home, set out a lamp before me, and devote myself to reading and writing. Whenever sleep overcame me or I became conscious of weakening, I would turn aside to drink a cup of wine, so that my strength would return to me. Then I would return to reading. And whenever sleep seized me I would see those very problems in my dream; and many questions became clear to me in my sleep. I continued in this until all of the sciences were deeply rooted within me and I understood them as is humanly possible. Everything which I knew at the time is just as I know it now; I have not added anything to it to this day. Thus I mastered the logical, natural, and mathematical sciences, and I had now reached the science.
Avicenna
W. E. Gohhnan, The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (1974), 29-31.
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  Drink (56)  |  Education (423)  |  Everything (489)  |  Home (184)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Master (182)  |  Myself (211)  |  Natural (810)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reading (136)  |  Return (133)  |  Root (121)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Strength (139)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understood (155)  |  Wine (39)  |  Writing (192)

But at the same time, there must never be the least hesitation in giving up a position the moment it is shown to be untenable. It is not going too far to say that the greatness of a scientific investigator does not rest on the fact of his having never made a mistake, but rather on his readiness to admit that he has done so, whenever the contrary evidence is cogent enough.
Principles of General Physiology (1915), x.xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Cogent (6)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Readiness (9)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Time (1911)  |  Untenable (5)

During my stay in London I resided for a considerable time in Clapham Road in the neighbourhood of Clapham Common... One fine summer evening I was returning by the last bus 'outside' as usual, through the deserted streets of the city, which are at other times so full of life. I fell into a reverie (Träumerei), and 10, the atoms were gambolling before my eyes! Whenever, hitherto, these diminutive beings had appeared to me, they had always been in motion: but up to that time I had never been able to discern the nature of their motion. Now, however, I saw how, frequently, two smaller atoms united to form a pair: how the larger one embraced the two smaller ones: how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the smaller: whilst the whole kept whirling in a giddy dance. I saw how the larger ones formed a chain, dragging the smaller ones after them but only at the ends of the chain. I saw what our past master, Kopp, my highly honoured teacher and friend has depicted with such charm in his Molekular-Welt: but I saw it long before him. The cry of the conductor 'Clapham Road', awakened me from my dreaming: but I spent part of the night in putting on paper at least sketches of these dream forms. This was the origin of the 'Structural Theory'.
Kekule at Benzolfest in Berichte (1890), 23, 1302.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chain (51)  |  Charm (54)  |  City (87)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Cry (30)  |  Dance (35)  |  Desert (59)  |  Discern (35)  |  Dragging (6)  |  Dream (222)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Form (976)  |  Friend (180)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp (2)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Paper (192)  |  Past (355)  |  Saw (160)  |  Spent (85)  |  Still (614)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Summer (56)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)

Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.
Darwiniana: essays (1896), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Cradle (19)  |  Crush (19)  |  Hercules (9)  |  History (716)  |  Lie (370)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |  Record (161)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Snake (29)  |  Theologian (23)

For if there is any truth in the dynamical theory of gases the different molecules in a gas at uniform temperature are moving with very different velocities. Put such a gas into a vessel with two compartments [A and B] and make a small hole in the wall about the right size to let one molecule through. Provide a lid or stopper for this hole and appoint a doorkeeper, very intelligent and exceedingly quick, with microscopic eyes but still an essentially finite being.
Whenever he sees a molecule of great velocity coming against the door from A into B he is to let it through, but if the molecule happens to be going slow he is to keep the door shut. He is also to let slow molecules pass from B to A but not fast ones ... In this way the temperature of B may be raised and that of A lowered without any expenditure of work, but only by the intelligent action of a mere guiding agent (like a pointsman on a railway with perfectly acting switches who should send the express along one line and the goods along another).
I do not see why even intelligence might not be dispensed with and the thing be made self-acting.
Moral The 2nd law of Thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.
Letter to John William Strutt (6 Dec 1870). In P. M. Hannan (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 582-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Against (332)  |  Agent (73)  |  Being (1276)  |  Coming (114)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Door (94)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Express (192)  |  Eye (440)  |  Finite (60)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Law (913)  |  Maxwell�s Demon (2)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Moral (203)  |  Pass (241)  |  Railway (19)  |  Right (473)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Self (268)  |  Shut (41)  |  Slow (108)  |  Small (489)  |  Statement (148)  |  Still (614)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Wall (71)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)

From a drop of water a logician could predict an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.
In A Study in Scarlet (1887, 1892), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Atlantic (8)  |  Chain (51)  |  Drop (77)  |  Great (1610)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Link (48)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logician (18)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Other (2233)  |  Predict (86)  |  Single (365)  |  Water (503)

From what has been said it is also evident, that the Whiteness of the Sun's Light is compounded all the Colours wherewith the several sorts of Rays whereof that Light consists, when by their several Refrangibilities they are separated from one another, do tinge Paper or any other white Body whereon they fall. For those Colours ... are unchangeable, and whenever all those Rays with those their Colours are mix'd again, they reproduce the same white Light as before.
Opticks (1704), Book 1, Part 2, Exper. XV, 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Color (155)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consist (223)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evident (92)  |  Fall (243)  |  Light (635)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Ray (115)  |  Refrangibility (2)  |  Separation (60)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Sun (407)  |  White (132)  |  White Light (5)

GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth's crust —to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones of mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  115.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Beer (10)  |  Bone (101)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Consist (223)  |  Crust (43)  |  Dog (70)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fool (121)  |  Formation (100)  |  Garbage (10)  |  Gas (89)  |  Geology (240)  |  Grass (49)  |  Humour (116)  |  Interior (35)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mole (5)  |  Patent (34)  |  Primary (82)  |  Railway (19)  |  Rock (176)  |  Snake (29)  |  Snap (7)  |  Statue (17)  |  Strata (37)  |  Tool (129)  |  Track (42)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worm (47)

Hence, even in the domain of natural science the aid of the experimental method becomes indispensable whenever the problem set is the analysis of transient and impermanent phenomena, and not merely the observation of persistent and relatively constant objects.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Become (821)  |  Constant (148)  |  Domain (72)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Set (400)  |  Transient (13)

I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man’s spiritual growth.
As quoted in Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (1997), 259.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificial (38)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Belief (615)  |  Development (441)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Feature (49)  |  Growth (200)  |  Individual (420)  |  Man (2252)  |  Man-Made (10)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Beauty (5)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Retarded (5)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Substitute (47)

I had … during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed by my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from memory than favorable ones.
In The Autobiography of Charles Darwin with original omissions restored, edited by Nora Barlow (1958).
Science quotes on:  |  Escape (85)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Golden (47)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Thought (995)  |  Year (963)

I had at one time a very bad fever of which I almost died. In my fever I had a long consistent delirium. I dreamt that I was in Hell, and that Hell is a place full of all those happenings that are improbable but not impossible. The effects of this are curious. Some of the damned, when they first arrive below, imagine that they will beguile the tedium of eternity by games of cards. But they find this impossible, because, whenever a pack is shuffled, it comes out in perfect order, beginning with the Ace of Spades and ending with the King of Hearts. There is a special department of Hell for students of probability. In this department there are many typewriters and many monkeys. Every time that a monkey walks on a typewriter, it types by chance one of Shakespeare's sonnets. There is another place of torment for physicists. In this there are kettles and fires, but when the kettles are put on the fires, the water in them freezes. There are also stuffy rooms. But experience has taught the physicists never to open a window because, when they do, all the air rushes out and leaves the room a vacuum.
'The Metaphysician's Nightmare', Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories (1954), 38-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Arrival (15)  |  Bad (185)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Chance (244)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Damned (4)  |  Death (406)  |  Delirium (3)  |  Department (93)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Effect (414)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fever (34)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Freeze (6)  |  Game (104)  |  Happening (59)  |  Heart (243)  |  Hell (32)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Kettle (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Never (1089)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Probability (135)  |  Room (42)  |  Rush (18)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Shuffle (7)  |  Sonnet (5)  |  Special (188)  |  Student (317)  |  Tedium (3)  |  Time (1911)  |  Torment (18)  |  Type (171)  |  Typewriter (6)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Window (59)

I have been especially fortunate for about 50 years in having two memory banks available—whenever I can't remember something I ask my wife, and thus I am able to draw on this auxiliary memory bank. Moreover, there is a second way In which I get ideas ... I listen carefully to what my wife says, and in this way I often get a good idea. I recommend to ... young people ... that you make a permanent acquisition of an auxiliary memory bank that you can become familiar with and draw upon throughout your lives.
T. Goertzel and B. Goertzel, Linus Pauling (1995), 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Ask (420)  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Available (80)  |  Bank (31)  |  Become (821)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Draw (140)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listening (26)  |  Live (650)  |  Memory (144)  |  People (1031)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Recommendation (12)  |  Remember (189)  |  Remembering (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wife (41)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

I have found no better expression than ‘religious’ for confidence in the rational nature of reality, insofar as it is accessible to human reason. Whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absent (3)  |  Accessible (27)  |  Better (493)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Degenerate (14)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Human (1512)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religious (134)  |  Uninspired (2)

I heard … xenon was a good anesthesia. … I thought, “How can xenon, which doesn’t form any chemical compounds, serve as a general anesthetic? … I lay awake at night for a few minutes before going to sleep, and during the next couple of weeks each night I would think, “…how do anesthetic agents work?" Then I forgot to do it after a while, but I’d trained my unconscious mind to keep this question alive and to call [it] to my consciousness whenever a new idea turned up…. So seven years went by. [One day I] put my feet up on the desk and started reading my mail, and here was a letter from George Jeffrey … an x-ray crystallographer, on his determination of the structure of a hydrate crystal. Immediately I sat up, took my feet off the desk, and said, “I understand anesthesia!” … I spent a year [and] determined the structure of chloroform hydrate, and then I wrote my paper published in June of 1961.
Interview with George B. Kauffman and Laurie M. Kauffman, in 'Linus Pauling: Reflections', American Scientist (Nov-Dec 1994), 82, No. 6, 522-523.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Alive (97)  |  Anesthesia (5)  |  Awake (19)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chloroform (5)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Crystallography (9)  |  Determination (80)  |  Do (1905)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Paper (192)  |  Publish (42)  |  Question (649)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Spent (85)  |  Start (237)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subconscious (4)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understand (648)  |  Week (73)  |  Work (1402)  |  X-ray (43)  |  Xenon (5)  |  Year (963)

I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the “Law of Frequency of Error.” The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason. Whenever a large sample of chaotic elements are taken in hand and marshaled in the order of their magnitude, an unsuspected and most beautiful form of regularity proves to have been latent all along.
In Natural Inheritance (1894), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Anarchy (8)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Complete (209)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Element (322)  |  Error (339)  |  Express (192)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greek (109)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impress (66)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Latent (13)  |  Law (913)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mob (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Prove (261)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Reign (24)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Self (268)  |  Serenity (11)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Unsuspected (7)  |  Wonderful (155)

I may conclude this chapter by quoting a saying of Professor Agassiz, that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' then that 'it is contrary to religion,' and lastly, 'that everybody knew it before.'
The Antiquity of Man (1863), 105.
Science quotes on:  |  Louis Agassiz (43)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  People (1031)  |  Professor (133)  |  Religion (369)  |  Say (989)  |  Startling (15)  |  Truth (1109)

I must confess, I am dreading today’s elections, … because no matter what the outcome, our government will still be a giant bonfire of partisanship. It is ironic since whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people. And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party.
On Sergey Brin’s Google+ page (6 Nov 2012).
Science quotes on:  |  Bonfire (2)  |  Confess (42)  |  Dread (13)  |  Effort (243)  |  Election (7)  |  Focus (36)  |  Giant (73)  |  Government (116)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Irony (9)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meet (36)  |  Must (1525)  |  Official (8)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Partisan (5)  |  Party (19)  |  People (1031)  |  Politics (122)  |  Stick (27)  |  Still (614)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Today (321)  |  Well-Meaning (3)  |  Will (2350)

I regard it as an inelegance, or imperfection, in quaternions, or rather in the state to which it has been hitherto unfolded, whenever it becomes or seems to become necessary to have recourse to … the resources of ordinary algebra. [x, y, z, etc.]
In Lectures on Quaternions: Containing a Systematic Statement of a New Mathematical Method (1853), 522.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Become (821)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Quaternion (9)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Regard (312)  |  Seem (150)  |  State (505)

I wonder that a soothsayer doesn’t laugh whenever he sees another soothsayer.
Science quotes on:  |  Laugh (50)  |  Parapsychology (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Soothsayer (4)  |  Wonder (251)

I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
Seventh stanza of poem 'On Turning 70'. The poem is printed in Michigan Office of Services to the Aging, Annual Report 2004 (2005), no page number.
Science quotes on:  |  Decide (50)  |  Decision (98)  |  Heart (243)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Open (277)  |  Right (473)  |  Something (718)  |  Usual (6)  |  Usually (176)

I’ve met a lot of people in important positions, and he [Wernher von Braun] was one that I never had any reluctance to give him whatever kind of credit they deserve. He owned his spot, he knew what he was doing, and he was very impressive when you met with him. He understood the problems. He could come back and straighten things out. He moved with sureness whenever he came up with a decision. Of all the people, as I think back on it now, all of the top management that I met at NASA, many of them are very, very good. But Wernher, relative to the position he had and what he had to do, I think was the best of the bunch.
From interview with Ron Stone (24 May 1999) for NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project on NASA website.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Best (467)  |  Wernher von Braun (29)  |  Credit (24)  |  Decision (98)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Good (906)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lot (151)  |  Management (23)  |  Manager (6)  |  NASA (12)  |  Never (1089)  |  People (1031)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reluctance (6)  |  Spot (19)  |  Sureness (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Top (100)  |  Understood (155)  |  Whatever (234)

If it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons. And by chance there happen to be such women, for, as I touched on before, just as women have more delicate bodies than men, weaker and less able to perform many tasks, so do they have minds that are freer and sharper whenever they apply themselves.
The Book of the City of Ladies (1405), part 1, section 27. Trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (1982), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Art (680)  |  Chance (244)  |  Customary (18)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Happen (282)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Perform (123)  |  School (227)  |  Task (152)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Touch (146)  |  Understand (648)  |  Woman (160)

In fact, whenever energy is transmitted from one body to another in time, there must be a medium or substance in which the energy exists after it leaves one body and before it reaches the other ... and if we admit this medium as an hypothesis, I think it ought to occupy a prominent place in our investigations, and that we ought to endeavour to construct a mental representation of all the details of its action, and this has been my constant aim in this treatise.
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), Vol. 2, 438.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Aim (175)  |  Body (557)  |  Constant (148)  |  Construct (129)  |  Detail (150)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Medium (15)  |  Mental (179)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Representation (55)  |  Substance (253)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Treatise (46)

In long intervals I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to be so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Bad (185)  |  Express (192)  |  Feel (371)  |  Guilty (8)  |  Interval (14)  |  Issue (46)  |  Long (778)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Public (100)  |  Silence (62)  |  Unfortunate (19)

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)  |  Term (357)  |  Turn (454)  |  Word (650)

It is among the psychoanalysts in particular that man is defined as a human being and woman as a female—whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.
The Second Sex (1949). Trans. H. M. Parshley (1953), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Female (50)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Man (2252)  |  Psychoanalyst (4)  |  Woman (160)

It is another property of the human mind that whenever men can form no idea of distant and unknown things, they judge them by what is familiar and at hand.
In The New Science (3rd ed., 1744), Book 1, Para. 122, as translated by Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch, The New Science of Giambattista Vico (1948, 1984), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Distant (33)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Judge (114)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Property (177)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unknown (195)

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)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Together (392)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

It is this mythical, or rather this symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which be long in the domain of science. Thus, it is of vital importance for the preservation of true religion that such conflicts be avoided when they arise from subjects which, in fact, are not really essential for the pursuance of the religious aims.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Arise (162)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Contain (68)  |  Content (75)  |  Domain (72)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fix (34)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Likely (36)  |  Long (778)  |  Mythical (3)  |  Occur (151)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Really (77)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Statement (148)  |  Stock (7)  |  Subject (543)  |  Symbolic (16)  |  Tradition (76)  |  True (239)  |  Vital (89)

It is well known that theoretical physicists cannot handle experimental equipment; it breaks whenever they touch it. Pauli was such a good theoretical physicist that something usually broke in the lab whenever he merely stepped across the threshold. A mysterious event that did not seem at first to be connected with Pauli's presence once occurred in Professor J. Franck's laboratory in Göttingen. Early one afternoon, without apparent cause, a complicated apparatus for the study of atomic phenomena collapsed. Franck wrote humorously about this to Pauli at his Zürich address and, after some delay, received an answer in an envelope with a Danish stamp. Pauli wrote that he had gone to visit Bohr and at the time of the mishap in Franck's laboratory his train was stopped for a few minutes at the Göttingen railroad station. You may believe this anecdote or not, but there are many other observations concerning the reality of the Pauli Effect!
From Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory (1966), 64. Note the so-called Pauli Effect is merely anecdotal to provide humor about supposed parapsychology phenomena in coincidences involving Pauli; it should not be confused with scientifically significant Pauli Exclusion Principle.
Science quotes on:  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Atom (381)  |  Belief (615)  |  Break (109)  |  Cause (561)  |  Collapse (19)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Delay (21)  |  Early (196)  |  Effect (414)  |  Envelope (6)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Event (222)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  First (1302)  |  James Franck (2)  |  Good (906)  |  Handle (29)  |  Humor (10)  |  Known (453)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Merely (315)  |  Minute (129)  |  Mishap (2)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Wolfgang Pauli (16)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Presence (63)  |  Professor (133)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Reality (274)  |  Something (718)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Station (30)  |  Step (234)  |  Stopped (3)  |  Study (701)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Train (118)  |  Usually (176)  |  Visit (27)

It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation. So there are mere philologists, mere jurists, mere soldiers, mere merchants, etc. To such idle talk it might further be added: that whenever a certain exclusive occupation is coupled with specific shortcomings, it is likewise almost certainly divorced from certain other shortcomings.
In Gauss-Schumacher Briefwechsel, Bd. 4, (1862), 387.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Couple (9)  |  Divorce (7)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Fault (58)  |  Idle (34)  |  Jurist (6)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merchant (7)  |  Mere (86)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philologist (3)  |  Shortcoming (5)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Specific (98)  |  Talk (108)  |  True (239)

It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages...
The Origin of Species (1870), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Bad (185)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Condition (362)  |  Daily (91)  |  Good (906)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Marked (55)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Progress (492)  |  See (1094)  |  Selection (130)  |  Slow (108)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Wherever (51)  |  World (1850)

John Bardeen was an avid golfer and a good one. Whenever possible, he sought out golf courses during research or consulting trips. According to the stories, he was as proud of hitting a “hole in one” as he was to win a second Nobel Prize.
In 'John Bardeen: A Place to Win Two Nobel Prizes and Make a Hole in One', collected in Lillian Hoddeson (ed.), No Boundaries: University of Illinois Vignettes (2004), Chap. 16, 257.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Avid (2)  |  John Bardeen (6)  |  Biography (254)  |  Consultant (2)  |  Course (413)  |  Golfer (3)  |  Good (906)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Possible (560)  |  Pride (84)  |  Research (753)  |  Second (66)  |  Trip (11)  |  Win (53)

Leo Szilard’s Ten Commandments:
1. Recognize the connections of things and the laws of conduct of men, so that you may know what you are doing.
2. Let your acts be directed towards a worthy goal, but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not means to an end.
3. Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world; lest in isolation the meaning of life slips out of sight and you lose the belief in the perfection of the creation.
4. Do not destroy what you cannot create.
5. Touch no dish, except that you are hungry.
6. Do not covet what you cannot have.
7. Do not lie without need.
8. Honor children. Listen reverently to their words and speak to them with infinite love.
9. Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become.
10. Lead your life with a gentle hand and be ready to leave whenever you are called.
Circulated by Mrs. Szilard in July 1964, in a letter to their friends (translated by Dr. Jacob Bronowski). As printed in Robert J. Levine, Ethics and Regulation of Clinical Research (1988), 431.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Ask (420)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Call (781)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Commandment (8)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Connection (171)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Example (98)  |  Friend (180)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hinder (12)  |  Honor (57)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listen (81)  |  Lose (165)  |  Love (328)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Memory (144)  |  Model (106)  |  Need (320)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Shut (41)  |  Sight (135)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Life is not a miracle. It is a natural phenomenon, and can be expected to appear whenever there is a planet whose conditions duplicate those of the earth.
[Stating his belief that planets supporting life cannot be rare.]
Lecture at New York Academy of Medicine. Quoted in article, 'Life Begins,' Time (24 Nov 1952).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Condition (362)  |  Duplicate (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Life (1870)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Natural (810)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rare (94)

Nature is disordered, powerful and chaotic, and through fear of the chaos we impose system on it. We abhor complexity, and seek to simplify things whenever we can by whatever means we have at hand. We need to have an overall explanation of what the universe is and how it functions. In order to achieve this overall view we develop explanatory theories which will give structure to natural phenomena: we classify nature into a coherent system which appears to do what we say it does.
In Day the Universe Changed (1985), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Abhorrence (8)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Classification (102)  |  Coherence (13)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Do (1905)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fear (212)  |  Function (235)  |  Imposition (5)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Order (638)  |  Overall (10)  |  Phenomena (8)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Simplification (20)  |  Simplify (14)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

Orgel's First Rule: Whenever a spontaneous process is too slow or too inefficient a protein will evolve to speed it up or make it more efficient.
In Jack D. Dunitz and Gerald F. Joyce, 'Leslie Eleazer Orgel', Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (2013), Vol. 59, 286.
Science quotes on:  |  Efficient (34)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Inefficient (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Process (439)  |  Protein (56)  |  Rule (307)  |  Slow (108)  |  Speed (66)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Will (2350)

Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard, you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants?
In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Difference (355)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examination (102)  |  Find (1014)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Theology (54)  |  Warrant (8)  |  Will (2350)

Precedents are treated by powerful minds as fetters with which to bind down the weak, as reasons with which to mistify the moderately informed, and as reeds which they themselves fearlessly break through whenever new combinations and difficult emergencies demand their highest efforts.
A Word to the Wise (1833), 3-6. Quoted in Anthony Hyman (ed.), Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage (1989), 202.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Combination (150)  |  Demand (131)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Down (455)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fetters (7)  |  Inform (50)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Precedent (9)  |  Reason (766)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Weak (73)

Psychologists pay lip service to the scientific method, and use it whenever it is convenient; but when it isn’t they make wild leaps of their uncontrolled fancy.…
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Control (182)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Leap (57)  |  Lip Service (2)  |  Method (531)  |  Psychologist (26)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Service (110)  |  Use (771)  |  Wild (96)

Spontaneous generation, to put the matter simply, takes place in smaller plants, especially in those that are annuals and herbaceous. But still it occasionally occurs too in larger plants whenever there is rainy weather or some peculiar condition of air or soil; for thus it is said that the silphium sprang up in Libya when a murky and heavy sort of wet weather condition occurred, and that the timber growth which is now there has come from some similar reason or other; for it was not there in former times.
De Causis Plantarum 1.5.1, in Robert Ewing Dengler (trans.) Theophrastus: De Causis Plantarum Book One: Text, Critical Apparatus, Translation, and Commentary, (1927), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Annual (5)  |  Condition (362)  |  Former (138)  |  Generation (256)  |  Growth (200)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Herbaceous (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurence (3)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Plant (320)  |  Rain (70)  |  Reason (766)  |  Small (489)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Still (614)  |  Timber (8)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weather (49)

Such propositions are therefore called Eternal Truths, not because they are Eternal Truths, not because they are External Propositions actually formed, and antecedent to the Understanding, that at any time makes them; nor because they are imprinted on the Mind from any patterns, that are any where out of the mind, and existed before: But because, being once made, about abstract Ideas, so as to be true, they will, whenever they can be supposed to be made again at any time, past or to come, by a Mind having those Ideas, always actually be true. For names being supposed to stand perpetually for the same ideas, and the same ideas having immutably the same habitudes one to another, Propositions concerning any abstract Ideas that are once true, must needs be eternal Verities.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 4, Chapter 11, Section 14, 638-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Exist (458)  |  Form (976)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Past (355)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Stand (284)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

The body of science is not, as it is sometimes thought, a huge coherent mass of facts, neatly arranged in sequence, each one attached to the next by a logical string. In truth, whenever we discover a new fact it involves the elimination of old ones. We are always, as it turns out, fundamentally in error.
In 'On Science and Certainty', Discover Magazine (Oct 1980)
Science quotes on:  |  Always (7)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Attachment (7)  |  Body (557)  |  Coherent (14)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Error (339)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Huge (30)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involvement (4)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mass (160)  |  Neatness (6)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Old (499)  |  Sequence (68)  |  String (22)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)

The dog [in Pavlov’s experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.
Personality: A Psychological Interpretation(1938), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Association (49)  |  Become (821)  |  Bell (35)  |  Complex (202)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dog (70)  |  Edible (7)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (18)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Phobia (3)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Shock (38)  |  Single (365)  |  System (545)

The fertilized germ of one of the higher animals … is perhaps the most wonderful object in nature… . On the doctrine of reversion [atavism] … the germ becomes a far more marvelous object, for, besides the visible changes which it undergoes, we must believe that it is crowded with invisible characters … separated by hundreds or even thousands of generations from the present time: and these characters, like those written on paper with invisible ink, lie ready to be evolved whenever the organization is disturbed by certain known or unknown conditions.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Character (259)  |  Condition (362)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Disturbed (15)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fertilize (4)  |  Generation (256)  |  Germ (54)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Ink (11)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Known (453)  |  Lie (370)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Organization (120)  |  Paper (192)  |  Present (630)  |  Reversion (3)  |  Separate (151)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Write (250)

The first effect of the mind growing cultivated is that processes once multiple get to be performed in a single act. Lazarus has called this the progressive “condensation” of thought. ... Steps really sink from sight. An advanced thinker sees the relations of his topics is such masses and so instantaneously that when he comes to explain to younger minds it is often hard ... Bowditch, who translated and annotated Laplace's Méchanique Céleste, said that whenever his author prefaced a proposition by the words “it is evident,” he knew that many hours of hard study lay before him.
In The Principles of Psychology (1918), Vol. 2, 369-370.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Advanced (12)  |  Author (175)  |   Nathaniel Bowditch (3)  |  Call (781)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evident (92)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Growing (99)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hour (192)  |  Instantaneous (4)  |  It Is Evident (6)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Preface (9)  |  Process (439)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Relation (166)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Sink (38)  |  Sophistication (12)  |  Step (234)  |  Study (701)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thought (995)  |  Topic (23)  |  Word (650)  |  Younger (21)

The methods of science aren’t foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible. Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered. The methods of science, like everything else under the sun, are themselves objects of scientific scrutiny, as method becomes methodology, the analysis of methods. Methodology in turn falls under the gaze of epistemology, the investigation of investigation itself—nothing is off limits to scientific questioning. The irony is that these fruits of scientific reflection, showing us the ineliminable smudges of imperfection, are sometimes used by those who are suspicious of science as their grounds for denying it a privileged status in the truth-seeking department—as if the institutions and practices they see competing with it were no worse off in these regards. But where are the examples of religious orthodoxy being simply abandoned in the face of irresistible evidence? Again and again in science, yesterday’s heresies have become today’s new orthodoxies. No religion exhibits that pattern in its history.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Arent (6)  |  Badly (32)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Compete (6)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Deny (71)  |  Department (93)  |  Discover (571)  |  Enforce (11)  |  Epistemology (8)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Example (98)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Face (214)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Foolproof (5)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Ground (222)  |  Heresy (9)  |  History (716)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Important (229)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Institution (73)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Irony (9)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Limit (294)  |  Method (531)  |  Methodology (14)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Practice (212)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Question (649)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scrutiny (15)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Simply (53)  |  Smudge (2)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Status (35)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suspicious (3)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Today (321)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Yesterday (37)

The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. Nevertheless, it has been found that there are apparent exceptions to most of these laws, and this is particularly true when the observations are pushed to a limit, i.e., whenever the circumstances of experiment are such that extreme cases can be examined. Such examination almost surely leads, not to the overthrow of the law, but to the discovery of other facts and laws whose action produces the apparent exceptions. As instances of such discoveries, which are in most cases due to the increasing order of accuracy made possible by improvements in measuring instruments, may be mentioned: first, the departure of actual gases from the simple laws of the so-called perfect gas, one of the practical results being the liquefaction of air and all known gases; second, the discovery of the velocity of light by astronomical means, depending on the accuracy of telescopes and of astronomical clocks; third, the determination of distances of stars and the orbits of double stars, which depend on measurements of the order of accuracy of one-tenth of a second-an angle which may be represented as that which a pin's head subtends at a distance of a mile. But perhaps the most striking of such instances are the discovery of a new planet or observations of the small irregularities noticed by Leverrier in the motions of the planet Uranus, and the more recent brilliant discovery by Lord Rayleigh of a new element in the atmosphere through the minute but unexplained anomalies found in weighing a given volume of nitrogen. Many other instances might be cited, but these will suffice to justify the statement that “our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”
In Light Waves and Their Uses (1903), 23-4. Michelson had some years earlier referenced “an eminent physicist” that he did not name who had “remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals,” near the end of his Convocation Address at the Dedication of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, 'Some of the Objects and Methods of Physical Science' (4 Jul 1894), published in University of Chicago Quarterly Calendar (Aug 1894), 3, No.2, 15. Also
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Air (366)  |  Angle (25)  |  Anomaly (11)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Call (781)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Clock (51)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Depend (238)  |  Determination (80)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Due (143)  |  Element (322)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Exception (74)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Gas (89)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  LeVerrier_Urbain (3)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Liquefaction (2)  |  Look (584)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mention (84)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  New (1273)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Observation (593)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overthrow (5)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Pin (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Push (66)  |  Sir John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (9)  |  Recent (78)  |  Remote (86)  |  Represent (157)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Statement (148)  |  Striking (48)  |  Surely (101)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Unexplained (8)  |  Uranus (6)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier (4)  |  Volume (25)  |  Will (2350)

The trick in discovering evolutionary laws is the same as it is in discovering laws of physics or chemistry—namely, finding the right level of generalization to make prediction possible. We do not try to find a law that says when and where explosions will occur. We content ourselves with saying that certain sorts of compounds are explosive under the right conditions, and we predict that explosions will occur whenever those conditions are realized.
In 'Paleoanthropology: Science or Mythical Charter?', Journal of Anthropological Research (Summer 2002), 58, No. 2, 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contentment (11)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Find (1014)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Law (913)  |  Level (69)  |  Occur (151)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Realization (44)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Trick (36)  |  Try (296)  |  Will (2350)

This skipping is another important point. It should be done whenever a proof seems too hard or whenever a theorem or a whole paragraph does not appeal to the reader. In most cases he will be able to go on and later he may return to the parts which he skipped.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Hard (246)  |  Important (229)  |  Most (1728)  |  Paragraph (5)  |  Part (235)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reader (42)  |  Return (133)  |  Skip (4)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or is connected with it through some fact of causation.
Fifth Canon of Induction (the Method of Concomitant Variations). In A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive; Being a Connected View of Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (1850), 233.
Science quotes on:  |  Causation (14)  |  Cause (561)  |  Connect (126)  |  Effect (414)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Manner (62)  |  Particular (80)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Through (846)  |  Vary (27)  |  Whatever (234)

When you say A[tomic] P[ower] is ‘here to stay’ you remind me that Chesterton said that whenever he heard that, he knew that whatever it referred to would soon be replaced, and thought pitifully shabby and old-fashioned. So-called ‘atomic’ power is rather bigger than anything he was thinking of (I have heard it of trams, gas-light, steam-trains). But it surely is clear that there will have to be some ‘abnegation’ in its use, a deliberate refusal to do some of the things it is possible to do with it, or nothing will stay!
From Letter draft to Joanna de Bortadano (Apr 1956). In Humphrey Carpenter (ed.) assisted by Christopher Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1995, 2014), 246, Letter No. 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Call (781)  |  G. K. Chesterton (55)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Do (1905)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gas Light (2)  |  Hear (144)  |  Light (635)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Replace (32)  |  Say (989)  |  Shabby (2)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Soon (187)  |  Stay (26)  |  Steam (81)  |  Surely (101)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Tram (3)  |  Use (771)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

Whenever … a controversy arises in mathematics, the issue is not whether a thing is true or not, but whether the proof might not be conducted more simply in some other way, or whether the proposition demonstrated is sufficiently important for the advancement of the science as to deserve especial enunciation and emphasis, or finally, whether the proposition is not a special case of some other and more general truth which is as easily discovered.
In Mathematical Essays and Recreations (1898), 88.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Arise (162)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Discover (571)  |  Ease (40)  |  Emphasis (18)  |  Enunciation (7)  |  General (521)  |  Important (229)  |  Issue (46)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Case (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)

Whenever a man can get hold of numbers, they are invaluable: if correct, they assist in informing his own mind, but they are still more useful in deluding the minds of others. Numbers are the masters of the weak, but the slaves of the strong.
Passages From the Life of a Philosopher (1864), 410.
Science quotes on:  |  Informing (5)  |  Invaluable (11)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Slave (40)  |  Still (614)  |  Strong (182)  |  Useful (260)  |  Weak (73)

Whenever a new scientific concept comes into prominence, it sends shock waves of surprise to the scholars contributing to that field.
In The Gene: A Critical History (1966), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Field (378)  |  New (1273)  |  Prominence (5)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shock (38)  |  Shock Wave (3)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Wave (112)

Whenever a textbook is written of real educational worth, you may be quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will be difficult to teach from it. Of course it will be difficult to teach from it. It it were easy, the book ought to be burned; for it cannot be educational. In education as elsewhere, the broad primrose path leads to a nasty place. This evil path is represented by a book or a set of lectures which will practically enable the student to learn by heart all the questions likely to be asked at the next external examination.
In 'The Aims of Education', The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 6-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Book (413)  |  Burn (99)  |  Certain (557)  |  Course (413)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easy (213)  |  Education (423)  |  Enable (122)  |  Evil (122)  |  Examination (102)  |  Heart (243)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Next (238)  |  Path (159)  |  Question (649)  |  Represent (157)  |  Say (989)  |  Set (400)  |  Student (317)  |  Teach (299)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)

Whenever anyone says, “theoretically,” they really mean, “not really.”
As quoted, without citation in Jon Fripp, ‎Michael Fripp and, ‎Deborah Fripp, Speaking of Science (2000), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Mean (810)  |  Really (77)  |  Say (989)  |  Theoretically (2)

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.
Movie
Love Actually (Prime Minister)
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Airport (3)  |  Arrival (15)  |  Board (13)  |  Call (781)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Far (158)  |  Father (113)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gate (33)  |  General (521)  |  Girlfriend (2)  |  Gloomy (4)  |  Greed (17)  |  Hate (68)  |  Hatred (21)  |  Hit (20)  |  Husband (13)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Message (53)  |  Mother (116)  |  Often (109)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Particularly (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Phone (2)  |  Plane (22)  |  Revenge (10)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Son (25)  |  Start (237)  |  State (505)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tower (45)  |  Twin (16)  |  Wife (41)  |  World (1850)

Whenever I meet in Laplace with the words “Thus it plainly appears”, I am sure that hours and perhaps days, of hard study will alone enable me to discover how it plainly appears.
Mécanique céleste (1829-39), Celestial mechanics (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Discover (571)  |  Enable (122)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hour (192)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Study (701)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Whenever ideas fail, men invent words.
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
Science quotes on:  |  Fail (191)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invention (400)  |  Word (650)

Whenever Nature's bounty is in danger of exhaustion, the chemist has sought for a substitute. The conquest of disease has made great progress as a result of your efforts. Wherever we look, the work of the chemist has raised the level of our civilization and has increased the productive capacity of the nation. Waste materials, formerly cast aside, are now being utilized.
Speech to American Chemical Society, White House lawn (Apr 1924). Quoted in American Druggist (1925), 73, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Cast (69)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Danger (127)  |  Disease (340)  |  Effort (243)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Great (1610)  |  Look (584)  |  Material (366)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Productive (37)  |  Progress (492)  |  Result (700)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Work (1402)

Whenever science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Best (467)  |  Debate (40)  |  Devil (34)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Grab (5)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)

Whenever the essential nature of things is analysed by the intellect, it must seem absurd or paradoxical. This has always been recognized by the mystics, but has become a problem in science only very recently.
In The Tao of Physics (1975), 50.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Become (821)  |  Essential (210)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Problem (731)  |  Recent (78)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Thing (1914)

Whenever there is a great deal of energy in one region and very little in a neighboring region, energy tends to travel from the one region to the other, until equality is established. This whole process may be described as a tendency towards democracy.
In 'Science and Religion', collected in Al Seckel (ed.), >Bertrand Russell on God and Religion (1986), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equality (34)  |  Establish (63)  |  Great (1610)  |  Little (717)  |  Neighboring (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Process (439)  |  Region (40)  |  Tend (124)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Travel (125)  |  Whole (756)

Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.
Science quotes on:  |  Doing (277)  |  Easy (213)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hard (246)  |  Job (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for.
As quoted in Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation (2007), 70-71.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Error (339)  |  Expert (67)  |  Fall (243)  |  Layman (21)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Problem (731)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Version (7)

Whenever we pride ourselves upon finding a newer, stricter way of thought or exposition; whenever we start insisting too hard upon “operationalism” or symbolic logic or any other of these very essential systems of tramlines, we lose something of the ability to think new thoughts. And equally, of course, whenever we rebel against the sterile rigidity of formal thought and exposition and let our ideas run wild, we likewise lose. As I see it, the advances in scientific thought come from a combination of loose and strict thinking, and this combination is the most precious tool of science.
In 'Culture Contact and Schismogenesis' (1935), in Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology (1972).
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Advance (298)  |  Against (332)  |  Combination (150)  |  Course (413)  |  Equally (129)  |  Essential (210)  |  Hard (246)  |  Idea (881)  |  Logic (311)  |  Lose (165)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Precious (43)  |  Pride (84)  |  Rebel (7)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  Run (158)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Sterile (24)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tool (129)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wild (96)

Whenever you can, count.
Quoted in James R. Newman, Commentary on Sir Francis Galton (1956), 1169.
Science quotes on:  |  Count (107)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Statistics (170)

Whenever you look at a piece of work and you think the fellow was crazy, then you want to pay some attention to that. One of you is likely to be, and you had better find out which one it is. It makes an awful lot of difference.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Attention (196)  |  Better (493)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Find (1014)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Think (1122)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)

Whenever you note the time on the clock, realize that it is now—right now—later than it has ever been.
As quoted in Douglas Martin, 'Kenneth Franklin, Astronomer, Dies at 84', New York Times (21 Jun 2007), C13. This was Martin’s concluding remark in a paper for the new millenium making clear it properly began not on in 2000, but on 1 Jan 2001.
Science quotes on:  |  Clock (51)  |  Later (18)  |  Now (5)  |  Realize (157)  |  Right (473)  |  Time (1911)


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.