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: “Environmental extremists ... wouldn�t let you build a house unless it looked like a bird�s nest.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index W > Category: Whisper

Whisper Quotes (11 quotes)

Galileo head and shoulders on starfield, w/earth in orbit around him with quotes “Eppur si muove” (Italian)+“And yet it moves”
By legend (likely not in fact), Galileo quietly whispered this to himself, after his confession.
Eppur si muove.
And yet it does move.
Referring to the Earth. Apocryphal saying (of doubtful authenticity). By legend, Galileo whispered this to himself as he rose from kneeling after making his abjuration of heliocentricity.
No clear evidence exists that Galileo actually said these words, which may have been invented as stories about Galileo were circulated after his death. Seen in print as early as L’Abbé Irailh, Querelles Littéraires [“Literary quarrels”] (Paris, 1761), Vol. 3, 49. As cited, with great skepticism, in John Joseph Fahie, Galileo, His Life and Work (1903), 325.
Science quotes on:  |  Abjuration (3)  |  Authenticity (5)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Heliocentric Model (7)  |  Himself (461)  |  Legend (18)  |  Making (300)  |  Move (223)  |  Rose (36)

A metaphysician is one who believes it when toxins from a dilapidated liver makes his brain whisper that mind is the boss of liver.
In A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949, 1956), 615.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Boss (4)  |  Brain (281)  |  Dilapidated (2)  |  Disease (340)  |  Liver (22)  |  Metaphysician (7)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Toxin (8)

Coal … We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization; for coal is a portable climate. … Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comforts bring its industrial power.
In chapter 3, 'Wealth', The Conduct of Life (1860), collected in Emerson’s Complete Works (1892), Vol. 6, 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Basket (8)  |  Black (46)  |  Boat (17)  |  Bringing (10)  |  Call (781)  |  Canada (6)  |  Carrying (7)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Climate (102)  |  Coal (64)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Draw (140)  |  Ear (69)  |  Industry (159)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mile (43)  |  Ounce (9)  |  Portable (4)  |  Power (771)  |  Rail (5)  |  Secret (216)  |  Ton (25)  |  Two (936)  |  Warm (74)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Will (2350)

Crowds of silent voices whisper in our ears, transforming the nature of what we see and hear. Some are those of childhood authorities and heroes; others come from family and peers. The strangest emerge from beyond the grave.
In 'Reality is a Shared Hallucination', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Authority (99)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Ear (69)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Family (101)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hero (45)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peer (13)  |  See (1094)  |  Silent (31)  |  Strange (160)  |  Transform (74)  |  Voice (54)

Dear Mr. Bell: … Sir Wm. Thomson … speaks with much enthusiasm of your achievement. What yesterday he would have declared impossible he has today seen realized, and he declares it the most wonderful thing he has seen in America. You speak of it as an embryo invention, but to him it seems already complete, and he declares that, before long, friends will whisper their secrets over the electric wire. Your undulating current he declares a great and happy conception.
Letter to Alexander Graham Bell (25 Jun 1876). Quoted in Alexander Graham Bell, The Bell Telephone: The Deposition of Alexander Graham Bell, in the Suit Brought by the United States to Annul the Bell Patents (1908), 101. Note: William Thomson is better known as Lord Kelvin.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Already (226)  |  America (143)  |  Bell (35)  |  Alexander Graham Bell (37)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conception (160)  |  Current (122)  |  Declare (48)  |  Declared (24)  |  Electric (76)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Friend (180)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happy (108)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Invention (400)  |  Baron William Thomson Kelvin (74)  |  Long (778)  |  Most (1728)  |  Realize (157)  |  Secret (216)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wire (36)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Yesterday (37)

I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven— [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I’ve got it now. It’s eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can’t manage a statistic.
Speech at the New York Association for Promoting the Interests of the Blind (29 Mar 1906). In Mark Twain and William Dean Howells (ed.), Mark Twain’s Speeches? (1910), 323.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Answer (389)  |  Deep (241)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Figure (162)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minute (129)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Reach (286)  |  Right (473)  |  Rugged (7)  |  Soon (187)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Study (701)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncertain (45)

Of what use are the great number of petrifactions, of different species, shape and form which are dug up by naturalists? Perhaps the collection of such specimens is sheer vanity and inquisitiveness. I do not presume to say; but we find in our mountains the rarest animals, shells, mussels, and corals embalmed in stone, as it were, living specimens of which are now being sought in vain throughout Europe. These stones alone whisper in the midst of general silence.
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 132. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Collection (68)  |  Coral (10)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inquisitiveness (6)  |  Living (492)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mussel (2)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Number (710)  |  Petrification (5)  |  Rare (94)  |  Say (989)  |  Shape (77)  |  Shell (69)  |  Silence (62)  |  Species (435)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Stone (168)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Use (771)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Vain (86)  |  Vanity (20)

One evening at a Joint Summer Research Congerence in the early 1990’s Nicholai Reshetikhin and I [David Yetter] button-holed Flato, and explained at length Shum’s coherence theorem and the role of categories in “quantum knot invariants”. Flato was persistently dismissive of categories as a “mere language”. I retired for the evening, leaving Reshetikhin and Flato to the discussion. At the next morning’s session, Flato tapped me on the shoulder, and, giving a thumbs-up sign, whispered, “Hey! Viva les categories! These new ones, the braided monoidal ones.”
In David N. Yetter, Functorial Knot Theory: Categories of Tangles, Coherence, Categorical Deformations, and Topological Invariants (2001), 8. Yetter writes this personal anecdote is given as a narrative in his own words. Presumable the phrases in quotation marks are based on recollection when written years later.
Science quotes on:  |  Braid (2)  |  Category (19)  |  Coherence (13)  |  David (6)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Early (196)  |  Explain (334)  |  Give (208)  |  Invariant (10)  |  Joint (31)  |  Knot (11)  |  Language (308)  |  Leave (138)  |  Length (24)  |  Mere (86)  |  Morning (98)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Research (753)  |  Retire (3)  |  Role (86)  |  Session (3)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sign (63)  |  Summer (56)  |  Tap (10)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thumb (18)

Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
Starving backstage, morning-stars are jaded
The moonshine murmur still shivers alone
Curved slice of sliver, shear breath shadows stone
Suspending twilight shiny and shaded
Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
Carving solace into silver in June
On horizons’ glow from forgotten gold
The moonshine’s’ shilling delivers alone
Gleaming duels of knights, pierce deathly silence
Steel tines of starlight, clashing swords they hold
Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
Dimples aware, sparkle sand on the dune
Winking at comets, after tails are told
The moon-sand whispers, sift rivers alone
Sharpness they hone, filing skills onto stone
Starlight dazzles, its own space created
Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
From owls’ talon, moonlight shimmers alone
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Aware (36)  |  Breath (61)  |  Carve (5)  |  Clash (10)  |  Comet (65)  |  Create (245)  |  Curve (49)  |  Dazzle (4)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Desert (59)  |  Duel (4)  |  Dune (4)  |  File (6)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Gleam (13)  |  Glow (15)  |  Gold (101)  |  Hold (96)  |  Hone (3)  |  Horizon (47)  |  June (2)  |  Knight (6)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moonlight (5)  |  Moonshine (5)  |  Morning (98)  |  Murmur (4)  |  Owl (3)  |  Painting (46)  |  Pierce (4)  |  River (140)  |  Sand (63)  |  Setting (44)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Shear (2)  |  Shilling (5)  |  Shiny (3)  |  Shiver (2)  |  Sift (3)  |  Silence (62)  |  Silver (49)  |  Skill (116)  |  Slice (3)  |  Sliver (2)  |  Solace (7)  |  Space (523)  |  Sparkle (8)  |  Star (460)  |  Starlight (5)  |  Stars (304)  |  Starvation (13)  |  Steel (23)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Sword (16)  |  Tail (21)  |  Talon (2)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tone (22)  |  Twilight (6)  |  Wink (3)

The self-appointed spokesmen for God incline to shout; He, Himself, speaks only in whispers.
Science quotes on:  |  God (776)  |  Himself (461)  |  Self (268)  |  Shout (25)  |  Speak (240)

When it becomes clear that you cannot find out by reasoning whether the cat is in the linen-cupboard, it is Reason herself who whispers, “Go and look. This is not my job: it is a matter for the senses.”
In Miracles: A Preliminary Study (1947), 110. Collected in Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian (2007), 245.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cat (52)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Job (86)  |  Linen (8)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sense (785)


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.