If they don’t depend on true evidence, scientists are no better than gossips.
—Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Biographer
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
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
—George Goodman (b.1930) American Economist, Author
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
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
If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English Political Philosopher
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 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) Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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
Isn’t it marvelous how those scientists know the names of all those stars?
—Unknown
Science is all metaphor.
—Timothy Leary (1920–96) American Psychologist, Author
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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
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
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
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
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
Science is for those who learn, poetry is for those who know.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
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
If it can’t be expressed in figures, it’s not science it’s opinion.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
There are two kinds of truth; the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
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
Faith is a fine invention when Gentleman can see, but microscopes are prudent in an emergency.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
—Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) German Nobel Biologist, Doctor
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
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Political/Social Theorist
In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
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
Leave a Reply