Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, they arrive at their conclusions—largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; but sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.
—Primo Levi (1919–87) Italian Novelist, Poet, Chemist
If they don’t depend on true evidence, scientists are no better than gossips.
—Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Biographer
Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It’s good for seeing where you’ve been. It’s good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can’t tell you where you ought to go.
—Robert M. Pirsig (b.1928) American Writer, Philosopher, Author
Whether a person shows themselves to be a genius in science or in writing a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, or the deed, is living and can live on.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
—Steven Weinberg (1933–2021) American Physicist
Do what we can, summer will have its flies.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Science has not solved problems, only shifted the points of problems.
—Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842–1933) American Clergyman, Civic Reformer
Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
—Karl Popper (1902–94) Austrian-born British Philosopher
The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
They tend to be suspicious, bristly, paranoid-type people with huge egos they push around like some elephantiasis victim with his distended testicles in a wheelbarrow terrified no doubt that some skulking ingrate of a clone student will sneak into his very brain and steal his genius work.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
There is not much that even the most socially responsible scientists can do as individuals, or even as a group, about the social consequences of their activities.
—Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British Historian
In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about differential calculus, quantum theory, or the obscene and so inanely liturgical ordeals of the precession of the equinoxes.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that science when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his life.
—R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) English Philosopher, Historian, Archaeologist
Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to God.
—Maria Mitchell (1818–89) American Astronomer
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
—George Goodman (b.1930) American Economist, Author
Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
—Louis Pasteur (1822–95) French Biologist
Nevertheless, in order to imbue civilization with sound principles and enliven it with the spirit of the gospel, it is not enough to be illumined with the gift of faith and enkindled with the desire of forwarding a good cause. For this end it is necessary to take an active part in the various organizations and influence them from within. And since our present age is one of outstanding scientific and technical progress and excellence, one will not be able to enter these organizations and work effectively from within unless he is scientifically competent, technically capable and skilled in the practice of his own profession.
—Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) Italian Catholic Religious Leader, Pope
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Sociologist, Political Theorist
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
If politicians and scientist were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
The microbe is so very small: You cannot take him out at all.
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) British Historian, Poet, Critic
Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
—Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer
Science is the systematic classification of experience.
—George Henry Lewes (1817–78) English Philosopher, Literary Critic, Art Critic
Isn’t it marvelous how those scientists know the names of all those stars?
—Unknown
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
I know of no department of natural science more likely to reward a man who goes into it thoroughly than anthropology. There is an immense deal to be done in the science pure and simple, and it is one of those branches of inquiry which brings one into contact with the great problems of humanity in every direction.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
Science, which cuts its way through the muddy pond of daily life without mingling with it, casts its wealth to right and left, but the puny boatmen do not know how to fish for it.
—Alexander Herzen (1812–70) Russian Revolutionary, Writer
Thus will the fondest dream of Phallic science be realized: a pristine new planet populated entirely by little boy clones of great scientific entrepreneurs free to smash atoms, accelerate particles, or, if they are so moved, build pyramids—without any social relevance or human responsibility at all.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
Science is an integral part of culture. It’s not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It’s one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.
—Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American Paleontologist, Science Writer
If it can’t be expressed in figures, it’s not science it’s opinion.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Science knows only one commandment—contribute to science.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Science is the only truth and it is the great lie. It knows nothing, and people think it knows everything. It is misrepresented. People think that science is electricity, automobilism, and dirigible balloons. It is something very different. It is life devouring itself. It is the sensibility transformed into intelligence. It is the need to know stifling the need to live. It is the genius of knowledge vivisecting the vital genius.
—Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French Poet, Novelist, Critic
Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with me, why plowing, building, ruling and the rest, or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest, by cursed Cain’s race invented be, and blest Seth vexed us with Astronomy.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist