Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Sociologist, Political Theorist
In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
If politicians and scientist were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) Spanish Educator, Philosopher, Author
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
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
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
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
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
There does not exist a category of science to which one can give the name applied science. There are science and the applications of science, bound together as the fruit of the tree which bears it.
—Louis Pasteur (1822–95) French Biologist
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
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
Science is for those who learn, poetry is for those who know.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
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
If the study of all these sciences which we have enumerated, should ever bring us to their mutual association and relationship, and teach us the nature of the ties which bind them together, I believe that the diligent treatment of them will forward the objects which we have in view, and that the labor, which otherwise would be fruitless, will be well bestowed.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
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
Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to God.
—Maria Mitchell (1818–89) American Astronomer
If they don’t depend on true evidence, scientists are no better than gossips.
—Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Biographer
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
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
Rather than have it the principal thing in my son’s mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament.
—Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) English Educationalist
Formal symbolic representation of qualitative entities is doomed to its rightful place of minor significance in a world where flowers and beautiful women abound.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
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 may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
—Karl Popper (1902–94) Austrian-born British Philosopher
The microbe is so very small: You cannot take him out at all.
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) British Historian, Poet, Critic
Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.
—Georges Braque (1882–1963) French Painter, Artist, Sculptor
If it can’t be expressed in figures, it’s not science it’s opinion.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
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
When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist