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Science

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“Philosophy was as naive as science in its unconscious acceptance of the assumptions or dynamic of typography. (p. 278)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mysticism is just tomorrow’s science dreamed today.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Interdeterminacy was a figure-ground problem arising from incongruity between the visual bias of classical science and the new acoustic sensibilities.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With [Francis] Bacon, Vico continuously asserts the claims of grammar as true science precisely because it has not yielded to specialism and method.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new science of communication is percept, not concept. (p. 259)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people who can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great maxim of modern thought is not only the toleration of everything, but the examination of everything. It is by examining very bare, very dull, very unpromising things, that modern science has come to be what it is.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Science of Economics does not deal with true happiness nor even with well-being in material things. It deals with a strictly limited field of what is called "Economic Wealth," and if it goes outside its own boundaries it goes wrong.”
Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn’t make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting — the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.”
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late... The science is clear. The global warming debate is over.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger (born 1947) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bill signing ceremony for California's strict anti-emissions law (26 September, 2006) .
“The nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today, all the normal mischances of living have been multiplied, a million-fold, by the potentialities for destruction, for an unthinking act of collective suicide, which man's very triumphs in science and invention have brought about. In this situation the artist has a special task and duty: the task of reminding men of their humanity and the promise of their creativity.”
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In the Name of Sanity (1954)
“However far modern science and technics have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson: Nothing is impossible.”
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A community whose life is not irrigated by art and science, by religion and philosophy, day upon day, is a community that exists half alive.”
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”
Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Death Wish of the Anarcho-Communists (1970).
“The fact is he made a prodigious blunder in commencing the attack, and now his only chance is to be silent and let people forget the exposure. I do not believe that in the whole history of science there is a case of any man of reputation getting himself into such a contemptible position.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About Richard Owen's view on human and ape brains, in a letter to J.D. Hooker (27 April 1861)
“Science has taught... me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my aspirations.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Presidential Address at the British Association, "Biogenesis and abiogenesis" (1870); later published in Collected Essays, Vol. 8, p. 229
“The man of science who commits himself to even one statement which turns out to be devoid of good foundation loses somewhat of his reputation among his fellows, and if he be guilty of the same error often he loses not only his intellectual, but his moral standing among them. For it is justly felt that errors of this kind have their root rather in the moral than in the intellectual nature.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection (1876)
“Science … commits suicide when it adopts a creed.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Darwin Memorial" (1885)
“Tibet... this is the highest country. No doubt it was inhabited before any other and could even have been the site of all creation and all science. The culture of the Indians, as is known is almost certainly came from Tibet, just as all our arts like agriculture, numbers, the game of chess, etc., seem to have come from India.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All natural philosophers, who wished to proceed mathematically in their work, have hence invariably (although unknown to themselves) made use of metaphysical principles, and must make use of such, it matters not how energetically they may otherwise repudiate any claim of metaphysics on their science.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface, Tr. Bax (1883)
“Natural science is throughout either a pure or an applied doctrine of motion.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface, Tr. Bax (1883)
“The universal and lasting establishment of peace constitutes not merely a part, but the whole final purpose and end of the science of right as viewed within the limits of reason.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good and strong will. Mechanism must precede science (learning). Also in morals and religion? Too much discipline makes one narrow and kills proficiency. Politeness belongs, not to discipline, but to polish, and thus comes last.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The evil effect of science upon men is principally this, that by far the greatest number of those who wish to display a knowledge of it accomplish no improvement at all of the understanding, but only a perversity of it, not to mention that it serves most of them as a tool of vanity.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the natural state no concept of God can arise, and the false one which one makes for himself is harmful. Hence the theory of natural religion can be true only where there is no science; therefore it cannot bind all men together.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would like to do for you now, a Japanese science fiction movie: "Attack of the Killer Vibrators.”
Robin Williams (1951–2014) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Performance at the L.A. Improv (1977)
“We have arisen as the result of purely natural processes; one of the great achievements of modern science has been the elimination of God or others teleologisms him as a necessity from our explanations.”
Greg Bear (1951–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be forgotten. Science is got by diligence; but Discretion and Wisdom cometh of GOD.”
Pythagoras (583–491 BC) said by 491 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science can learn a lot from someone this stupid.”
Maddox (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've got pissing people off down to a science.”
Maddox (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I learned easily mathematics and physics, as far as these sciences were taken in consideration in the school. I found in this ready help from my father, who loved science and had to teach it himself. He enjoyed any explanation he could give us about Nature and her ways. Unhappily, he had no laboratory and could not perform experiments.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) said by 1934 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Today in science history(September 19, 2026)
“It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) said by 1934 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Today in science history(September 19, 2026)
“If nucleus transplantation, aka therapeutic cloning, is banned, it will be a tremendous setback for science, and it will be indefinitely ... it will indefinitely prolong the suffering of hundreds of millions around the world, who are afflicted with wide variety of diseases and disabilities.”
Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Economics is a very dangerous science.”
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Atheists are also morally obligated to tell the truth as we see it. We should preach and proselytize too. We need to help believers. Someone who believes in god is wasting big parts of his or her life, holding back science and love, and giving "moral" support to dangerous extremists. If you believe something, you must share it; it's one of the ways we all learn about truth.”
Penn Jillette (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.”
Penn Jillette (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe.”
Tony Blair (born 1953) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference (28 September 2004), referring to the fact that no WMDs had been found in Iraq.
“During the last hundred years parents and teachers have ceased to take childhood and adolescence for granted. They have attempted to fit education to the needs of the child, rather than to press the child into an inflexible educational mould. To this new task they have been spurred by two forces, the growth of the science of psychology, and the difficulties and maladjustments of youth.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...neither tolerance nor intolerance is grounded in science and reason, but they are themselves acts of faith grounded in social custom and the politics of expediency and power.”
John Money (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have things like protected properties. We have abstract methods. We have all this stuff that your computer science teacher told you you should be using. I don't care about this crap at all.”
Rasmus Lerdorf (born 1968) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Itconversations.com, 2007, ditto.
“The dualistic philosophy reigned supreme in Europe, dominating the development of Western science. But with the advent of atomic physics, findings based on demonstrable experiment were seen to negate the dualistic theory, and the trend of thought since then has been back to the monistic conception of the ancient Taoists.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Myth does not set out to give lessons in natural science any more than in morals or sociology.”
François-Bernard Mâche (born 1935) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mâche, François-Bernard (1983, 1992). Music, Myth and Nature, or The Dolphins of Arion (Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion, trans. Susan Delaney). Harwood Academic Publishers. .
“They were newly rich contractors who, having bought houses, motors, hand-painted pictures, and gentlemanliness, were now buying a refined ready-made philosophy. It had been a tossup with them whether to buy New Thought, Christian Science, or a good standard high-church model of Episcopalianism. ~ Ch. 30”
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is within science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described.”
Willard van Orman Quine (1908–2000) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Theories and Things, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981
“More attention to the History of Science is needed, as much by scientists as by historians, and especially by biologists, and this should mean a deliberate attempt to understand the thoughts of the great masters of the past, to see in what circumstances or intellectual milieu their ideas were formed, where they took the wrong turning or stopped short on the right track.”
Ronald Fisher (1890–1962) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Natural selection from the genetical standpoint. Australian Journal of Science 22, 16-17, 1959.