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Science

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“Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against scepticism and against dogmatism, against disbelief and against superstition, and the rallying cry in this crusade has always been, and always will be: "On to God!”
Max Planck (1858–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that. That's what motivates me.”
Jonas Salk (1914–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[S]omebody said that ecology is the science of understanding consequences.”
Frank Herbert (1920–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any opposition not based on rationalism or science or experience will one day or other, reveal the fraud, selfishness, lies and conspiracies.”
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I find it [science] analytical, pretentious and superficial—largely because it does not address itself to dreams, chance, laughter, feelings, or paradox—in other words,—all the things I love the most.”
Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science will, in all probability, be increasingly impregnated by mysticism.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My Universe (1924)
“To connect the two energies, of the body and the soul, in a coherent manner: science has provisionally decided to ignore the question... caught up as we are here in the logic of a system where the within of things has just as much or... more value than their without... we must advance.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: address "What is Science?", presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320
“Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: address "What is Science?", presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320
“Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science — for to fill your heart with love is enough!”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Note to the mother of Marcus Chown, who had admired the profile of Feynman presented in the BBC TV Horizon program "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981). Written after Chown asked Feynman to write her a birthday n…
“This is the key of modern science and is the beginning of the true understanding of nature. This idea. That to look at the things, to record the details, and to hope that in the information thus obtained, may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dogmatics must be designed in this way. Above all, every science must vigorously lay hold of its own beginning and not live in complicated relations with other sciences. If dogmatics begins by wanting to explain sinfulness or by wanting to prove its actuality, no dogmatics will come out of it, but the entire existence of dogmatics will become problematic and vague.”
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) said by 1855 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
William Thomson (1825–1907) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883), published in Lectures Vol. I, p. 73
“I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of sound speculation in dynamical science.”
William Thomson (1825–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910), by Silvanus Phillips, Volume 2, (2005 edition, . p. 866)
“Tesla has contributed more to electrical science than any man up to his time.”
William Thomson (1825–1907) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of 1896, as quoted in Prodigal Genius : The Life of Nikola Tesla (2007) by James J. O'Neill
“Now I think hydrodynamics is to be the root of all physical science, and is at present second to none in the beauty of its mathematics.”
William Thomson (1825–1907) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a letter addressed to George Stokes dated December 20, 1857, as quoted in Fluid Mechanics in the Next Century (1996), by Mohamed Gad-el-Hak and Mihir Sen.
“I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards, I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That's what science fiction is all about.”
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Now Wait for This Year", introduction to the anthology The Golden Man (1980)
“There is a major flaw in America, which does not appear to exist in France: the American people are basically anti-intellectual. They're not interested in novels of ideas. And science fiction is essentially the field of ideas. And the anti-intellectualism of Americans prohibits their interest in imaginative ideas [and] in intellectual concepts.”
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview Philip K. Dick". Metz, September 1977. Festival du livre de science fiction. Un film de Yves Breux. Realise par Froncois Luxerau et Rene Lubin. Event occurs at 7:00.
“They had better luck with the seashell. Exobiology suddenly found itself standing on unnervingly solid ground: one and seven-tenths grams of highly organized biological information, definitely extraterrestrial. Olga's seashell generated an entire subbranch of the science, devoted exclusively to the study of...Olga's seashell.”
William Gibson (born 1948) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hinterlands" (originally appearing in Omni, October 1981)
“The God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events.”
Emma Goldman (1869–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass, though but slowly.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be certain whither he is going.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science, knowledge of the things that are possible present and past; prescience, knowledge of the things which may come to pass.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm no teacher. Never wanted to teach and don't believe in teaching an art. Science yes, business of course..but an art cannot be taught. You can only inculcate it, you can be an exemplar, you can create an atmosphere in which it can grow. Well I suppose I, being an exemplar, could be called a teacher, in spite of myself. So go ahead, call me a teacher.”
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from an interview on the NBC television program, Wisdom- A Conversation with Frank Lloyd Wright (1953)
“Everywhere these inventions of science by ignorant misuse of a new technique were wiping out the artist.”
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is inventive but creative never.”
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I find it hard to believe that the machine would go into the creative artist's hand even were that magic hand in true place. It has been too far exploited by industrialism and science at expense to art and true religion.”
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the basis of deductions from a constant rationale) depends on whether the terms which sociologists employ to describe events can be analyzed into quantifiable observables.”
Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Anatol Rapoport, "Outline of a probabilistic approach to animal sociology: I." The Bulletin of mathematical biophysics 11.3 (1949): p 183
“We live in an age of belief-belief in the omnipotence of science. This belief is bolstered by the fact that the problems scientists are called on to solve are for the most part selected by the scientists themselves.”
Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.”
Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of Flight and Life (1948)
“Those who are really convinced that they have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the marvels of science and the gains of culture belong to the nation as a whole, and never again will man’s brain and human genius be used for oppression and exploitation.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers, Soldiers’ And Peasants : Report On The Activities Of The Council Of People’s Commissars" (January 1918); Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 453-82.
“I absolutely do not pretend in the slightest fashion to knowledge of military science.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Stalin : A Biography (2004) by Robert Service, p. 183.
“Few would defend a small view of Alchemy as "Mother of Chemistry", and confuse its true goal with those external metal arts. Alchemy is an erotic science, involved in buried aspects of reality, aimed at purifying and transforming all being and matter. Not to suggest that material operations are ever abandoned. The adept holds to both the mystical and physical work.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cinema returns us to anima, religion of matter, which gives each thing its special divinity and sees gods in all things and beings. Cinema, heir of alchemy, last of an erotic science.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One is not quite certain that creativeness in the arts, literature, and science functions best in an environment of absolute freedom. Chances are that a relatively mild tyranny stimulates creativeness.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Entry (1956)
“Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals; yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Entry (1956)
“So don’t put this into a this category ‘this is settled science’,.. anything that deviates from the one true opinion on this means you’re a some horrible bigot and transphobic. That is not what is going on here. I don’t think David Chappelle is transphobic… Maybe we are going too far with the children part of this. You know, kids should not be really making decisions about their gender.”
Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“S’il est terrifiant de penser que la vie puisse être à la merci de la multiplication de ces infiniment petits, il est consolant aussi d’espérer que la science ne restera pas toujours impuissante devant de tels ennemis.”
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“La grandeur des actions humaines se mesure à l’inspiration qui les fait naître. Heureux celui qui porte en soi un Dieu, un idéal de la beauté et qui lui obéit : idéal de l’art, idéal de la science, idéal de la patrie, idéal des vertus de l’Évangile! Ce sont là les sources vives des grandes pensées et des grandes actions. Toutes s’éclairent des reflets de l’infini.”
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Sir William Osler in his introduction to The Life of Pasteur (1907) by Rene Vallery-Radot, as translated by R .L. Devonshire (1923)
“You bring me the deepest joy that can be felt by a man whose invincible belief is that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will unite, not to destroy, but to build, and that the future will belong to those who will have done most for suffering humanity.”
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks at a celebration honoring his seventieth birthday, the Sorbonne, Paris, France (27 December 1892); Vol. 2, p. 297
“The importance of the culture industry in the spiritual constitution of the masses is no dispensation for reflection on its objective legitimation, its essential being, least of all by a science which thinks itself pragmatic.”
Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By abstaining from all definite content, whether as formal logic and theory of science or as the legend of Being beyond all beings, philosophy declared its bankruptcy regarding concrete social goals.”
Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaningless lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of political and erotic passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error — the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning has deliberately been excluded, with ultimate reality.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 14, p. 309 [2012 reprint]
“Patriotism is not enough. But neither is anything else. Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“one of the greats...Not just a science fiction writer; a literary icon.”
Stephen King (born 1947) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: on Twitter, about Ursula Le Guin (2018)
“The old spelling MAGICK has been adopted throughout in order to distinguish the Science of the Magi from all its counterfeits.”
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part II: Magick (1912)