Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Science

Though science can cause problems, it is not by ignorance that we will solve them.
Isaac Asimov (1920–92) Russian-born American Writer, Scientist

One needn’t be a crank to miss the scientific boat. The very paragon of genius, Albert Einstein, couldn’t be persuaded to give quantum physics his unreserved endorsement. Here is Einstein’s most frequently paraphrased statement of dissatisfaction with the theory: Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn’t play dice.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist

It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer

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

Science without conscience is the soul’s perdition.
Francois Rabelais (1494–1553) French Humanist, Satirist

There is an insistent tendency among serious social scientists to think of any institution which features rhymed and singing commercials, intense and lachrymose voices urging highly improbable enjoyment, caricatures of the human esophagus in normal and impaired operation, and which hints implausibly at opportunities for antiseptic seduction as inherently trivial. This is a great mistake. The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial television and could not exist in its present form without it.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist

Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist

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 study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Max Planck (1858–1947) German Theoretical Physicist

There was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently, however they have writ the style of gods, and made a pish at chance and sufferance.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright

Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.
Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) Scottish-born American Inventor, Engineer, Academic

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may from a raw recruit, and its methods differ from those of common sense, only as the guardsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist

The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler.
Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-born American Physicist

An archaeologist is someone whose career lies in ruins.
Unknown

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman

We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears!
John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic

The only medicine that does women more good than harm is dress.
Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
Democritus (c.460–c.370 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher

Science is all metaphor.
Timothy Leary (1920–96) American Psychologist, Author

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings.
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author

When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist

Science is what you know, philosophy what you don’t know.
Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist

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

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

Many talk like philosophers yet live like fools.
Common Proverb

The negative cautions of science are never popular. If the experimentalist would not commit himself, the social philosopher, the preacher, and the pedagogue tried the harder to give a short-cut answer.
Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Social Psychologist

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