Famous quotes
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Science
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“Science and religion have to go hand in hand with the mystery, because there's a certain point beyond which you say, "There are no answers.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it's the exact opposite!”
Paul Dirac (1902–1984) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Brighter Than a Thousand Suns : A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (1958) by Robert Jungk, as translated by James Cleugh, p. 22
“The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.”
Paul Dirac (1902–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Dirac: A Scientific Biography (1990), by Helge Kragh, p. 258{{cite book
“I have five minutes left to give you a message to take home. The message is simple. "God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world". This was said by Francis Bacon, one of the founding fathers of modern science, almost four hundred years ago. Bacon was the smartest man of his time, with the possible exception of William Shakespeare.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Progress in science is often built on wrong theories that are later corrected. It is better to be wrong than to be vague.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a curious paradox that several of the greatest and most creative spirits in science, after achieving important discoveries by following their unfettered imaginations, were in their later years obsessed with reductionist philosophy and as a result became sterile. Hilbert was a prime example of this paradox. Einstein was another.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When all is said and done, science is about things and theology is about words. Things behave in the same way everywhere, but words do not. ... Theology works in one culture alone. If you have not grown up in Polkinghorne's culture, where words such as "incarnation" and "trinity" have a profound meaning, you cannot share his vision.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The common root of modern science and Christian theology was Greek philosophy. The historical accident that caused the Christian religion to become heavily theological was the fact that Jesus was born in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire at the time when the prevailing culture was profoundly Greek.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In literature, science, art, philosophy, religion, in individual and above all in social and political life, we can observe how the line of the development of forces deviates from its original direction and goes, after a certain time, in a diametrically opposite direction, still preserving its former name.”
G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The method of viewing things which proceeds in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason is the rational method, and it alone is valid and of use in practical life and in science. The method which looks away from the content of this principle is the method of genius, which is only valid and of use in art.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Zweiter Band, Ergänzungen zum dritten Buch, para. 36 (1859)
“Philosophy … is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) said by 1860 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as science has been able to determine, the entire universe consists of but two elements--matter and energy. Through the combination of energy and matter, has been created everything perceptible to man, from the largest star which floats in the heavens, down to, and including man, himself. p. 64”
Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a person a) is poorly, b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and c) gets better, no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health.”
Peter Medawar (1915–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the great glory as well as the great threat of science that everything which is in principle possible can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute.”
Peter Medawar (1915–1987) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Threat and the Glory, 1977
“It is to the highest credit of the philosophy of the time that it did not let itself be led astray by the restricted state of contemporary natural knowledge, and that — from Spinoza down to the great French materialists — it insisted on explaining the world from the world itself and left the justification in detail to the natural science of the future.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a pity that such a thinker as Spinoza had to leave our stage so soon. He could not live to see the enormous progress of science which would also have improved his system.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Johann Gottfried Herder, God, Some Conversations (1787) [original in German]
“...The teaching of Spinoza, the product of the Jewish genius and modern science [Wissenschaft], does not stand in contradiction with the Jewish teaching of unity - at most it may contradict its rationalistic and super-naturalistic approach.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Moses Hess, in his book The Holy History of Mankind (1837) [original in German]
“Nature as conceived by many ecologists, and expressed philosophically by James Lovelock and others, is not the passive, dead, value-neutral nature of mechanistic science but is akin to the active, "naturing" nature of Spinoza. It is all-inclusive, creative (as natura naturans), infinitely diverse, and alive in the broad sense of Spinozistic so-called panpsychism.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Goethe—not a German event, but a European one: a magnificent attempt to overcome the eighteenth century by a return to nature, [...] He sought help from history, natural science, antiquity, and also Spinoza, [...]”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilights of Idols (1888), "Skirmishes of an Untimely Man", 49.
“Where the frontier of science once was is now the centre.”
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) said by 1799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) edited by Alan Lindsay Mackay, p. 153
“Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.”
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) said by 1799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.”
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) said by 1799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.”
Karl Kraus (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.”
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fictions of Every Kind" in Books and Bookmen (February 1971)
“Science fiction: The body's dream of becoming a machine. Robotics: The moral degradation of the machine. Typewriter: It types us, encoding its own linear bias across the free space of the imagination.”
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Project for a Glossary of the Twentieth Century", reprinted in Selected Nonfiction, 1962-2007 (The MIT Press, 2023).
“Science and technology multiple around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction" to the French edition (1974) of Crash (1973); reprinted in Re/Search no. 8/9 (1984)
“Over the last few years I’ve been telling science fiction fandom that they are The Establishment in this genre, and for my pains I’ve amassed a truly impressive following of people who loathe, hate and despise me.”
Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In science, technology, economics, industry, agriculture, armaments, and democratic rule, America, Europe, and Japan are generations ahead. But the Islamic world retains something the West has lost: a desire to have children and the will to carry on their civilization, cultures, families, and faith.”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No multitude is able to acquire any art whatsoever. Then if there is a kingly art, neither the collective body of the wealthy nor the whole people could ever acquire this science of statesmanship.”
Plato (429–349 BC) said by 349 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our western science is a child of moral virtues; and it must now become the father of further moral virtues if its extraordinary material triumphs in our time are not to bring human history to an abrupt, unpleasant and discreditable end.”
Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Turning Point in Man's Destiny", The New York Times Magazine (26 December 1954) p. 5
“There is, however, no propriety in wasting any time about the science of metaphysics. I will give you my definition of metaphysics: Two fools get together; each admits what neither can prove, and thereupon both of them say, “hence we infer.” That is all there is of metaphysics.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Concept of Nature (1919), Chapter VII, p.143.
“The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If science is not to degenerate into a medley of ad hoc hypotheses, it must become philosophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism of its own foundations.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The salvation of reality is its obstinate, irreducible, matter-of-fact entities, which are limited to be no other than themselves. Neither science, nor art, nor creative action can tear itself away from obstinate, irreducible, limited facts.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All science must start with some assumptions as to the ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions are justified partly by their adherence to the types of occurrence of which we are directly conscious, and partly by their success in representing the observed facts with a certain generality, devoid of ad hoc suppositions.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Modern science has imposed on humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the cells and schoolrooms of the cloister, between the strong double redstone pillars and rounded arches, monks lived, taught, administered, studied, ruled. Every branch of science was pursued there, and inherited by each new generation: divine and worldly lore, the dark and the light.”
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am actually not at all a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador — an adventurer, if you want it translated — with all the curiosity, daring, and tenacity characteristic of a man of this sort.”
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Wilhelm Fliess, Feb. 1, 1900. The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904 (1985).
“The breathing problems started almost immediately. And they were told they weren't sick, they were crazy. And then, as the illnesses got worse and things became more apparent: "Well, okay, you're sick, but it's not from the pile." And then, when the science became irrefutable: "Okay, it's the pile, but this is a New York issue. I don't know if we have the money.”
Jon Stewart (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kuhn's theory suffers from a fatal flaw. It explains the succession from one paradigm to another in sociological or psychological terms, rather than as having primarily to do with the objective merit of the rival explanations. Yet unless one understands science as a quest for explanations, the fact that it does find successive explanations, each objectively better than the last, is inexplicable.”
David Deutsch (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Experience is indeed essential to science, but its role is different from that supposed by empiricism. It is not the source from which theories are derived. Its main use is to choose between theories that have already been guessed. That is what ‘learning from experience’ is.”
David Deutsch (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We really haven't got any great amount of data on the subject, and without data how can we reach any definite conclusions? All we have — everything — favors the idea of what religionists call the "Hereafter." Science, if it ever learns the facts, probably will find another more definitely descriptive term.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 295
“The subject may appear an insignificant one, but we shall see that it possesses some interest; and the maxim "de minimis lex non curat," does not apply to science.”
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He remarks that "considering their weakness and their size, the work they are represented to have accomplished is stupendous." Here we have an instance of that inability to sum up the effects of a continually recurrent cause, which has often retarded the progress of science, as formerly in the case of geology, and more recently in that of the principle of evolution.”
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time is always ripe for the re-interpretation of theories in the light of new vision and of new facts. This is the very province of science.”
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.”
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source