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Science

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“My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. [...] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism.”
Carl Jung (1875–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That's a clear prescription for disaster.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bringing Science Down to Earth (1994), co-authored with Anne Kalosh, in Hemispheres (October 1994), p. 99; this is similar to statements either mentioned in earlier interviews or published later in the book The Demon-Ha…
“That kind of skeptical, questioning, "don't accept what authority tells you" attitude of science — is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Talk of the Nation (3 May 1996)
“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works.”
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Diane Sawyer, as quoted in "Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win'" on ABC World News (7 June 2010)
“A man of true science...uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose; whereas the smatterer in science... thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human.”
Frank Herbert (1920–1986) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Men on other planets", essay in The Craft of Science Fiction, (1976), edited by Reginald Bretnor
“The only way to have real success in science, the field I'm familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I, for one, bet on science as helping us. I have yet to see how it fundamentally endangers us, even with the H-bomb lurking about. Science has given us more lives than it has taken; we must remember that.”
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Self Portrait" (1968), reprinted in
“Science Fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.”
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.”
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1960) by René Jules Dubos, Ch. 3 : Pasteur in Action
“Le premier regard de l'homme jeté sur l'univers n'y découvre que variété, diversité, multiplicité des phénomènes. Que ce regard soit illuminé par la science, — par la science qui rapproche l'homme de Dieu, — et la simplicité et l'unité brillent de toutes parts.”
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Letter to an Atheist (2007) by Michael Patrick Leahy, p. 61
“The science of religion is one science within philosophy; indeed it is the final one. In that respect it presupposes the other philosophical disciplines and is therefore a result.”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1829 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Burke and the Edinburgh Phrenologists in The Atlas (15 February 1829); reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt, William Hazlitt and Percival Presland Howe (ed.), (2nd edition, 1925), p. 117; also reprinted in The C…
“I fear —as far as I can tell— that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. I've heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification.”
Alan Kay (born 1940) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ACM Queue A Conversation with Alan Kay Vol. 2, No. 9 - Dec/Jan 2004-2005
“Like most science-fiction writers, Trout knew almost nothing about science.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage — and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still — I deny that contemptibility, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation of appreciation of art.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?”
Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)
“And the Science of them, is the true and onely Moral Philosophy. For Moral Philosophy is nothing else but the Science of what is Good, and Evill, in the conversation, and Society of mankind. Good, and Evill, are names that signify our Appetites, and Aversions; which in different tempers, customes, and doctrines of men, are different:”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no knowledge and science like pondering and thought; and there is no prosperity and advancement like knowledge and science.”
Ali (599–661) said by 661 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did you appreciate that each column of the Parthenon makes a very slight inward incline, so that if projected upward into space they would eventually steeple themselves together at a symmetrical point in the empyrean? The “rightness” is located somewhere between the beauty of science and the science of beauty.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Lovely Stones” (2009)
“I write fantasy. The only science fiction I have written is Fahrenheit 451. It's the art of the possible. Science fiction is the art of the possible. It could happen. It has happened.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Conversation with Ray Bradbury - Point Loma Nazarene University, Writer's Symposium By The Sea; April, 2001
“Most of the writers I know in any field, especially science fiction, grew up late. They're so interested in doing what they do and in their science, they don't think about other things.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Time Enough for Love: the lives of Lazarus Long; a novel (1973), p. 366
“We must not pursue science for ends independent of science. It must be pursued for its own sake, and must lead to its own results.”
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Private journal (1858), quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 40
“Science fiction is a pop medium and a very obsolescent medium...science fiction has a hard time wrapping itself in the traditional mantle of literary excellence... we try to do this sometimes, but generally we have to be really drunk first.”
Bruce Sterling (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is a method for testing claims about the natural world, not an immutable compendium of absolute truths. The fundamentalists, by "knowing" the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science—or of any honest intellectual inquiry.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although both the natural and moral sciences seek to understand the objects of their observation, in natural science the purpose of this is to be able to control them better, whereas in moral science it is, or ought to be, to be better able to leave them alone. The morally proper aim of psychology, then, is self-control.”
Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.”
Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The language of science—and especially of a science of man—is, necessarily, anti-individualistic, and hence a threat to human freedom and dignity.”
Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most aliens in science fiction aren’t truly alien, and that’s not because science fiction writers lack imagination, but because the purpose of an alien in a story is usually to provide a meaningful distortion of human nature.”
Joe Haldeman (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A person who thinks he learns science from science fiction is like one who thinks he learns history from historical novels, and he deserves what he gets.”
Joe Haldeman (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science was a social construct, but it was also and most importantly its own space, conforming to reality only; that was its beauty. Truth is beauty, as the poet had said, speaking of science. And it was; the poet had been right (they weren’t always).”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.”
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Imagination of Disaster" from Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966), p. 212
“In Science we have finally come back to the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who said everything is flow, flux, process. There are no "things." NOTHINGNESS in Eastern language is "no-thingness". We in the West think of nothingness as a void, an emptiness, an nonexistence. In Eastern philosophy and modern physical science, nothingness — no-thingness — is a form of process, ever moving.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not leave any verses, dogmas, nor any moulded standard principles as moral heritage. My moral heritage is science and reason. What I have done and intended to do for the Turkish nation lies in that. Anyone willing to appropriate my ideas for themselves after me will be my moral inheritors provided they would approve the guidance of science and reason on this axis.”
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Kemalist Devrim ve İdeolojisi (1980) by İsmet Giritli, İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları, p. 13
“Science is the most real guide for civilisation, for life, for success in the world. To search for a guide other than science is absurdity, ignorance and heresy.”
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Atatürkçülük, Volume I, General Staff of the Republic of Turkey, Millî Eğitim Basımevi, 1984, p. 283
“From the union of power and money, from the union of power and secrecy, from the union of government and science, from the union of government and art, from the union of science and money, from the union of ambition and ignorance, from the union of genius and war, from the union of outer space and inner vacuity, the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.”
Wendell Berry (1934–2026) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union" in Entries (1997)
“Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.”
Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last published words With Oppenheimer on an Autumn Day, Look, Vol. 30, No. 26 (19 December 1966)
“Science has an important part to play in our everyday existence, and there is far too much neglect of science; but its intention is to supplement not to supplant the familiar outlook.”
Arthur Eddington (1882–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of science shows that the progress of science has constantly been hampered by the tyrannical influence of certain conceptions that finally came to be considered as dogma. For this reason, it is proper to submit periodically to a very searching examination, principles that we have come to assume without any more discussion.”
Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The essence of the Vedas is a narrative on who the experiencing self is. Ordinary science informs us of the relationships between objects and also their transformations. But the Vedas say that this ordinary science leaves out the self who observes these objects.”
Subhash Kak (born 1947) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview The Hindu, 2014
“That Big Science culture in the USA, and similar groups elswhere, tended to have separate, direct access to government and hence to funding sources. It was independent to a great extent of the rest of science, of which it was never a majority component except in funding.”
Philip Warren Anderson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality.”
Steven Spielberg (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.”
Ben Stein (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One can hardly engage in a serious study of medieval Christianity without discovering among its ‘values’ the belief in a rational science of human and social order and especially of natural law. Moreover, this science was not simply a belief, but it was actually elaborated as a work of reason.”
Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Paris the rich encounter wit ready-made, pre-digested science, and opinions already formulated, which excuse them from hand to have wit, science or opinion.”
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now if we want poets to interpret physical science as Milton and Shelley did (Shelley and Keats were the last English poets who were at all up-to-date in their chemical knowledge), we must see that our possible poets are instructed, as their masters were, in science and economics.”
J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.”
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952) for The Sea Around Us; also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91
“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them. If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91
“But however mysterious is nature, however ignorant the doctor, however imperfect the present state of physical science, the patronage and the success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful experiments.”
P. T. Barnum (1810–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source