Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
Faith is a fine invention when Gentleman can see, but microscopes are prudent in an emergency.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
—Louis Pasteur (1822–95) French Biologist
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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, Collagist, Co-founder of Cubism
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
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
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
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
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
To overturn orthodoxy is no easier in science than in philosophy, religion, economics, or any other disciplines through which we try to comprehend the world and the society in which we live.
—Ruth Hubbard (1924–2016) American Biologist, Professor
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
Science knows only one commandment—contribute to science.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
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
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
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
Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
If they don’t depend on true evidence, scientists are no better than gossips.
—Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Biographer
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English Political Philosopher
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
—Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) German Nobel Biologist, Doctor
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
If it can’t be expressed in figures, it’s not science it’s opinion.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
—Karl Popper (1902–94) Austrian-born British Philosopher
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
Science has not solved problems, only shifted the points of problems.
—Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842–1933) American Clergyman, Civic Reformer
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
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
Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
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
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