Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Science
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“I tried to make up by offering to be a subject for any cute tricks that science might want to try. And [the doctor] said, "Mr. Wood, we cannot use you as an experimental animal," and I tod him, "Doc, I’m an effeminate queer, I’ve never been used as anything else!”
Robert Patrick (playwright) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are no secrets in science.”
C. P. Snow (1905–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Physicists (1981), published posthumously.
“Science vs. Technology: We should know why things must act as they do, to make them act as we want them to.”
Saul Gorn (1912–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is the future of mankind.”
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (1933–2026) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quantum Physics: From Basic Concepts to Applications. Honeywell-Nobel Laureate Lecture Series at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (September 15, 2008), at 1:52.
“It is far easier to learn science first and philosophy later than the other way round!”
Harvey Brown (philosopher) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is incapable of supplying answers to ultimate questions about why things exist and what their purpose is.”
Nicola Cabibbo (1935–2010) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: interview by John L. Allen, Jr. on July 18, 2005, National Catholic Reporter (July 21, 2005)
“Science is the systematic classification of experience.”
George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Physical Basis of Mind (1877; repr. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1891) p. 4
“It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to "try" more than if you are a pessimist.”
Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are no limits to what science can explore.”
Ernest Solvay (1838–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mathematics is the science which draws necessary conclusions.”
Benjamin Peirce (1809–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Astronomy leads us to an unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.”
Arno Allan Penzias (1933–2024) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Designed 'Just-so' Universe" (1999) by Walter L. Bradley
“I never think about genre when I work. I've written fantasy, science fiction, supernatural fiction, and am now working on a suspense novel. Genres are mostly useful as a marketing tool, and to help booksellers known where to shelve a book.”
Elizabeth Hand (born 1957) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Elizabeth Hand on Mortal Love at HarperCollins (2004)
“O maister deere and Fadir reverent, Mi maister Chaucer, flour of eloquence, Mirour of fructuous entendement, O, universel fadir in science! Allas! þat þou thyn excellent prudence In þi bed mortel mightist naght by-qwethe; What eiled deth? allas! whi wolde he sle the?”
Thomas Occleve (1369–1426) said by 1426 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Line 1961; vol. 3, p. 71; translation from Roger Sherman Loomis and Rudolph Willard (eds.) Medieval English Verse and Prose in Modernized Versions (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948) p. 351.
“Both the uncertainty principle and the negentropy principle of information make Laplace's scheme [of exact determinism] completely unrealistic. The problem is an artificial one; it belongs to imaginative poetry, not to experimental science.”
Léon Brillouin (1889–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before a science can develop principles, it must possess concepts. Before a law of gravitation could be formulated, it was necessary to have the notions of “acceleration” and “weight.”
Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science simply forces us to revise what is sensible to accommodate the universe, rather than vice versa.”
Lawrence M. Krauss (born 1954) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Universe from Nothing, Simon & Schuster (2012), p. 151
“Science is empirical: knowing the answer is nothing. Testing your knowledge means everything.”
Lawrence M. Krauss (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[O]ne of the great things about science is it forces us to refine our idea of what's common sense. It forces us to have our beliefs conform to the evidence of reality rather than the other way around. The universe may not be like we'd like it to be, but it doesn't really care.”
Lawrence M. Krauss (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pretention that some of us are better than others, I don't think is a very good thing. And who is contributing what to our progress in science is not so obvious and many who don't get that Nobel Prize are better than people than some of us that do get the Nobel Prize. … I think we should not be interested in prizes, we should be interested in learning about nature.”
Jack Steinberger (1921–2020) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with the 1988 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Jack Steinberger, at the 58th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany, July 2008.
“Shouldn’t I join the ranks of philosophers and merely make unsubstantiated claims about the wonders of human consciousness? Shouldn’t I stop trying to do some science and keep my head down? Indeed not.”
Kevin Warwick (born 1954) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in Hendricks, V: “Feisty Fragments for Philosophy”, King’s College Publications, London,2004.
“Effective science teaching calls for active contact with research and that teachers need to mingle with other scientists and to know what is going on in the field.”
Alan Tower Waterman (1892–1967) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March 1953), Vol. 9, No. 2,ISSN 0096-3402, published by Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc., p. 38.
“We live of novelty in science. So when you do something new, you have to overcome certain beliefs that it cannot be done, that it's not interesting and so on.”
Heinrich Rohrer (1933–2013) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Heinrich Rohrer at the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 9 April, 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org.
“My whole existence has been devoted to science and to teaching, and these two intense passions have brought me very great joy.”
Charles Fabry (1867–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[These] applications of mathematics... as also the celestial mechanics of Newton and his... successors, are... a "basic" science which... had no immediate "use"... We touch here on one of the characteristics of human beings, curiosity... evident in young children...”
Jean Dieudonné (1906–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On graduating from the school, a studious young man who would withstand the tedium and monotony of his duties has no choice but to lose himself in some branch of science or literature completely irrelevant to his assignment.”
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806) said by 1806 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without real experience in using the computer to get useful results the computer science major is apt to know all about the marvelous tool except how to use it. Such a person is a mere technician, skilled in manipulating the tool but with little sense of how and when to use it for its basic purposes.”
Richard Hamming (1915–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The assumptions and definitions of mathematics and science come from our intuition, which is based ultimately on experience. They then get shaped by further experience in using them and are occasionally revised. They are not fixed for all eternity.”
Richard Hamming (1915–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great results in science and engineering are "bunched" in the same person too often for success to be a matter of random luck.”
Richard Hamming (1915–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In science if you know what you are doing you should not be doing it. In engineering if you do not know what you are doing you should not be doing it. Of course, you seldom, if ever, see either pure state.”
Richard Hamming (1915–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All of engineering involves some creativity to cover the parts not known, and almost all of science includes some practical engineering to translate the abstractions into practice.”
Richard Hamming (1915–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To understand is to marvel. To marvel with understanding is to achieve the highest of intellectual states, to justify the triple raison d'être mentioned above: to be sensitive to theology, to aesthetics, and to science.”
Larkin Kerwin (1924–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Experimental science is a craft and an art, and part of the art is knowing when to end a fruitless experiment. There is a danger of becoming obsessed with a fruitless experiment even if it goes nowhere.”
Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Common elements of creativity are originality and imagination. Creativity is intertwined with the freedom to design, to invent and to dream. In engineering and science a creative idea is useful only if it meets three conditions: the constraint of the natural laws, the constraint of cost, and the constraint of technical feasibility.”
Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reality of the 'Maunder Minimum' and its implications of basic solar change may be but one more defeat in our long and losing battle to keep the sun perfect, or, if not perfect, constant, and if inconstant, regular. Why we think that sun should be any of these when other stars are not is more a question for social than for physical science.”
John A. Eddy (1931–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trouble is that you won't get the scientists to agree on a course of action. It is almost instinctive in science to accept contrary views, because disagreeing gives you guidance to experimental tests of ideas — your own and those offered by others….”
Frederick Seitz (1911–2008) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Explaining his opinion on why "the most beneficial kinds of research won't get done because the most politically attractive research will get the funding instead", in an interview for the George C. Marshall Institute, (…
“We must nevertheless present all possible interpretations for each observation, so that competing theories can be formulated and defended. In science, as elsewhere, intellectual inertia, the fashions of the moment, the weight of institutions, and authoritarianism are always to be feared. Heresies play an essential role by keeping our minds argumentative and alert.”
Hubert Reeves (1932–2023) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hubert Reeves (1984) Atoms of silence: an exploration of cosmic evolution Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 23
“That’s the trouble with science. It’s never done. Always upending itself. Ruining perfect systems for the little inconvenience of them being wrong.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In her little room of a laboratory, everything fit together. She’d met scholars who claimed they needed chaos to function. Perhaps that was true for some, but in her experience, good science wasn’t about sloppy inspiration. It was about meticulous incrementalization.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most beautiful discoveries since the Renaissance, indeed since the beginnings of all science, are the laws governing light, whether moving through a uniform medium, or being reflected from an opaque surface, or changing direction upon entering another transparent medium.”
Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) said by 1759 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Research into motion was not to the liking (or perhaps not within the scope) of the ancients, so that we may consider it as a completely new science. How could the ancients have discovered the laws of moiton, given that some philosophers reduced all their speculations about motion to sophistic disputes, whereas others denied that motion existed at all?”
Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) said by 1759 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a demarcation criterion exists (we must not, I think, seek a sharp or decisive one), it may lie just in that part of science which Sir Karl ignores.”
Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)
“History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.”
Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Few people who are not actually practitioners of a mature science realize how much mop-up work of this sort a paradigm leaves to be done or quite how fascinating such work can prove in the execution.”
Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 24 (2012 ed.)
“In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.”
Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 64 (2012 ed.)
“Science is competitive, aggressive, demanding. It is also imaginative, inspiring, uplifting.”
Vera Rubin (1928–2016) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bright Galaxies, Dark Matters (1997), p. 219
“Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.”
Vera Rubin (1928–2016) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in In Quest of the Universe (2007), by Theo Koupelis and Karl F. Kuhn, p. 583
“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.”
Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the hands of Science and indomitable energy, results the most gigantic and absorbing may be wrought out by skilful combinations of acknowledged data and the simplest means.”
George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was Rudolf Carnap’s dream for the last three decades of his life to show that science proceeds by a formal syntactic method; today no one to my knowledge holds out any hope for that project.”
Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hilary Putnam, in: James Conant, Urszula M. Zeglen (2012) Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism. p. 14
“While political and cultural factors are important as explanations for differences in national technology policy and industrial practices, emergent trends in science, engineering and management are leading to new paradigms for high-technology innovation in both Japan and the United States.”
Lewis M. Branscomb (1926–2023) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lewis M. Branscomb, Fumio Kodama (1993) Japanese innovation strategy: technical support for business visions