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Science
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“Florentine painting between Giotto and Michelangelo contains the names of such artists as Orcagna, Masaccio, Fra Filippo, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, Leonardo, and Botticelli. ... Forget that they were painters, they remain great sculptors; forget that they were sculptors, and still they remain architects, poets, and even men of science.”
Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new art must be based upon science — in particular, upon mathematics, as the most exact, logical, and graphically constructive of the sciences.”
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) said by 1528 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1970 - 1990) edited by M Steck.
“Our primeval Mother Earth is an organism that no science in the world can rationalize. Everything on her that crawls and flies is dependent upon Her and all must hopelessly perish if that Earth dies that feeds us.”
Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I am a fool then it is no misfortune, for then only one more fool will wander this Earth. Amongst the millions of mentally deranged it would barely be noticed. But what if I am not a fool, and that science itself has erred? Then the tragedy is incalculable!”
Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 51, p. 29. As translated & edited by Callum Coats, Water Wizard (1998).
“They call me deranged. The hope is that they are right! It is of no greater or lesser import for yet another fool to wander this Earth. But if I am right and science is wrong, then may the Lord God have mercy on mankind!”
Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science views the blood-building and character-influencing ur-organism "water" merely as a chemical compound and provides millions of people with a liquid prepared from this point of view, which is everything but healthy water.”
Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can fight the international technocracy in an efficient way only by challenging it on its very own field of activity, the economic science, and by opposing a kind of knowledge that respects human beings and realities towards that mutilated kind of knowledge used by the technocrats themselves.”
Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pierre Bourdieu on a strike meeting of governmental employees in Lyon/France, 1995. Quote from: Grefe C., Greffrath M. & Schumann H. Attac: Was wollen die Globalisierungskritiker? Berlin: Rowohlt p. 15
“We document, explain, justify, construct, organize: these are good things, but we do not succeed in coming to the whole.. .But we may as well calm down: construction is not absolute. Our virtue is this: by cultivating the exact we have laid the foundations for a science of art, including the unknown X.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of 1917; as quoted in Teaching at the Bauhaus (2000) by Rainer Wick and Gabriele Diana Grawe, p. 231
“the most fruitful ways to approach the future for me are speculative fiction or utopian fiction. Isaac Asimov once said that all science fiction falls into three categories: What if, If only, and If this continues. I have written in all three categories.”
Marge Piercy (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science fiction, speculative fiction, whatever you want to call it, is one of the ways to explore social issues in fiction. You can explore what it's going to be like if current trends continue. You can change a variable and see what that does.”
Marge Piercy (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As opposed to science ideology has the precise function of hiding the real contradictions and of reconstituting on an imaginary level a relatively coherent discourse which serves as the horizon of agents' experience.”
Terry Eagleton (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is not rocket science. Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet. For the artists, my ass... I didn't ask them to protect me, and I don't want their protection.”
David Draiman (born 1973) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Disturbed Singer Blasts Record Companies Over Lawsuits Against Downloaders, Blabbermouth.net, 11 september 2003)
“Every month, the US is spending more on the Iraqi war than it took to reach Saturn and Titan. Mass murder is expensive, and good science is relatively cheap.”
Caitlín R. Kiernan (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (16 January 2005)
“The best news of the day. Pfizer vaccine (a major trial was under progress) is 90% effective. Victory for science and humanity. Stock markets soaring across the world. Seems like the real deal this time.”
Chetan Bhagat (born 1974) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: — Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) 2021 at Twitter
“Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?”
John Constable (1776–1837) first seen 1836 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from 'The History of Landscape Painting,' fourth lecture, Royal Institution (16 June 1836), from John Constable's Discourses, ed. R.B. Beckett, (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1970), p. 69.
“If what you’re doing is not seen by some people as science fiction, it’s probably not transformative enough.”
Sergey Brin (born 1973) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mayer, Catherine (August 5, 2013). Meet ‘Schmeat’: Say Hello to the Stem-Cell Hamburger. Time Magazine. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
“There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Lifelines (1997) by Steven Rose
“Moving forward will not be for the faint of heart. But if the next century witnesses failure, let it be because our science is not yet up to the job, not because we don't have the courage to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All for the Good: Why genetic engineering must soldier on" TIME magazine, Vol. 153, No. 1 (11 January 1999)
“To succeed in science, you have to avoid dumb people (here I was still following Luria's example). Now that might sound inexcusably flip, but the fact is that you must always turn to people who are brighter than yourself.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science Ph.D. students have effectively become serfs. And who would become a serf when you can work for Goldman Sachs and get paid $300,000 a year to become a serf? Why drive a Chevy when you can drive a BMW — and now you're condemned to driving a car from Malaysia or something. Life should be fun.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dr. James Watson Follows His Own Advice" in Seattlest (28 September 2007)
“The thought that some people are innately wicked disturbs me. But science is not here to make us feel good. It is to answer questions in the service of knowledge and greater understanding. In finding out the extent to which genes influence moral behaviour, we shall also be able to understand how genes influence intellectual capacities.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Crick, however, was right. Our discovery put an end to a debate as old as the human species: Does life have some magical, mystical essence, or is it, like any chemical reaction carried out in a science class, the product of normal physical and chemical processes? Is there something divine at the heart of a cell that brings it to life? The double helix answer that question with a definitive No.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The tendency is to focus on the worst-case scenario and to shy away from potentially controversial science; it is time, I think, we looked instead at the benefits.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With its direct contradiction of religious accounts of creation, evolution represents science’s most direct incursion into the religious domain and accordingly provokes the acute defensiveness that characterizes creationism.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is not religion. We're not going to be able to answer the "why" questions. But when you put together all of what we know about the universe, it fits together amazingly well.”
Lisa Randall (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've said many times that you can't stop science... God made man in his own image. God intended for man to become one with God. We are going to become one with God. We are going to have almost as much knowledge and almost as much power as God. Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God.”
Richard Seed (1928–2013) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Public Radio (1998-01-07)
“We must... maintain that mathematical geometry is not a science of space insofar as we understand by space a visual structure that can be filled with objects - it is a pure theory of manifolds.”
Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The game of science can accurately be described as a never-ending insult to human intelligence.”
João Magueijo (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great art is never extreme. Criticism moves in a false direction, as does art, when it aspires to be a social science.. .In this world modern artists form a kind of spiritual underground.”
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Motherwell's writing in 1944; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, American Painter and Printmaker', on 'Artstory'
“Many attributed this to a supernatural agency. Many more, among whom was Burton, did not think that there was any agency except an advanced science which accounted for this. There was no need to call in the supernatural. “No ghosts need apply,”—to quote the immortal Sherlock Holmes. Physical explanations sufficed.”
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nutrition science is where surgery was in about 1650, you know, really interesting and promising, but would you want to have them operate on you yet? I don’t think so.”
Michael Pollan (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Christianity tore the spirit from this world; and worldly reality, rendered foreign, mute, lifeless, external, material — such reality became the object of Western science.”
Julius Evola (1898–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age with the Absolute Knowledge of computer science; while they are unable to read, for reading demands making judgments at every line.... Conversation is almost dead, and soon so too will be those who knew how to speak.”
Guy Debord (1931–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole object of science is to synthesize, and so simplify; and did we but know the uttermost of a subject we could make it singularly clear.”
Percival Lowell (1855–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before the quantum theory appeared, the principle of the uniformity of nature - that like causes produce like effects - had been accepted as a universal and indisputable fact of science. As soon as the atomicity of radiation became established, this principle had to be discarded.”
James Jeans (1877–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Modern science and technology have reached a level where there is the grave danger that a weapon even more terrible than nuclear weapons may be developed. The reason and conscience of mankind dictate the need to erect an insuperable barrier barrier to the development of such a weapon.”
Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Nuclear Disarmament (1979) by Aleksandr Efremovich Efremov
“The rapid development of science... has, as it were, burst its old shell, now become too narrow.”
Hermann Weyl (1885–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hyperbole! can you not rise In triumph from my memory, A modern magic spell devise As from an ironbound grammary: For I inaugurate through science The hymn of all hearts spiritual In the labor of my patience, Atlas, herbal, ritual.”
Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prose" (1885).
“The House is composed of very good men, not shining, but honest and reasonably well-informed, and in time they will be found to improve, and not to be much inferior in eloquence, science, and dignity, to the British Commons. They are patriotic enough, and I believe there are more stupid (as well as more shining) people in the latter, in proportion.”
Fisher Ames (1758–1808) first seen 1789 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to George Richard Minot (May 27, 1789); reported in Works of Fisher Ames (1854), ed. Seth Ames, vol. 1, p. 45.
“Judo should be free as art and science from any external influences, political, national, racial, and financial or any other organized interest. And all things connected with it should be directed to its ultimate object, the "Benefit of Humanity". Human sacrifice is a matter of ancient history.”
Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The task of science is to stake out the limits of the knowable, and to center consciousness within them.”
Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1849 (R. Virchow. Der Mensch (On Man). Berlin, 1849. English translation in: L. J. Rather, Disease, Life and Man -- Selected Essays of Rudolf Virchow, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, pp. 67–70, 1958).
“We oppose the West's efforts to gain a monopoly in nuclear fuel, and in nuclear industry and science. I believe that the Iranian success is a great success for the Islamic world.”
Mohammad-Javad Larijani (born 1951) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: We Are Interested in Nuclear Cooperation with Arab and Muslim Countries; the Americans Will Need Our Assistance to Withdraw from Iraq (May 2006)
“The wages Haiti requires by law belong in the department of science fiction: actual wages on coffee plantations vary from $.07 to $.15 a day”
Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Galeano (1973) Vagamundo , p. 112
“Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.”
Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In science, it is not speed that is the most important. It is the dedication, the commitment, the interest and the will to know something and to understand it — these are the things that come first.”
Eugene Wigner (1902–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An exact science is one that admits loss.”
Genesis P-Orridge (1950–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many a woman shudders … at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians.”
Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Written in 1852, as quoted in ch. 87.
“Our scientists all the more occupy advanced positions in the development of world science. By the example of their successes in the field of atomic energy, our scientists and technicians have vividly shown how much the increased might of the Soviet state and the further growth of its international authority depends on their efforts and practical successes.”
Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Newsweek, Vol. 43, Issues 1-13 (1954), p. 133
“The good thing about being in the BookWorld is that we aren’t hampered by anything as awkward as physical laws. The RealWorld must be hideously annoying to do science in.”
Jasper Fforde (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human reason is the only saviour we have... We need more education, not less; more science, not less; more hope for the future, and more confidence in it.”
A. J. P. Taylor (1906–1990) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'My Religion', Daily Herald (10 January 1953), p. 5