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. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“Halley shattered their monopoly, beating them at their own game. A game that no scientist had ever played before: Prophecy. -S01E03”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's a bit like being a mad scientist. You mix a bit of this with some of that. You're never sure what's going to happen. But I'd rather blow up the laboratory than keep reinventing the wheel.”
Tod A (born 1965) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: NPR World Cafe (June 18, 2008).
“Sam was too good a scientist to let that hope creep into his hypothesizing.”
James Blish (1921–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Intellectual Freedom", letter to the editor of The Reporter about the situation of scientists in America (13 / 18 October 1954, v11, no. 9; sometimes cited as 14 / 23 September 1954 instead; reprinted in Einstein On …
“Gary Kildall was one of the original pioneers of the PC revolution. He was a very creative computer scientist who did excellent work. Although we were competitors, I always had tremendous respect for his contributions to the PC industry. His untimely death was very unfortunate and he and his work will be missed.”
Bill Gates (born 1955) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Computer Chronicles. "Special Edition: Gary Kildall." 1995
“Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)
“Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Asimov's Guide to Science (1972), p. 15
“Ignorance, to a scientist, is an itch that begs to be pleasurably scratched. Ignorance, if you are a theologian, is something to be washed away by shamelessly making something up.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The successful scientist and the raving crank are separated by the quality of their inspirations. But I suspect that this amounts, in practice, to a difference, not so much in ability to notice analogies as in ability to reject foolish analogies and pursue helpful ones.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have flown twice over Mount St. Helens. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that one little mountain out there, in these last several months, has probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ronald Reagan, Time magazine (20 October 1980)
“The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it...but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the theory-practice iteration to work, the scientist must be, as it were, mentally ambidextrous; fascinated equally on the one hand by possible meanings, theories, and tentative models to be induced from data and the practical reality of the real world, and on the other with the factual implications deducible from tentative theories, models and hypotheses.”
George E. P. Box (1919–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever it has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan, May 27, 1996.
“[[Happiness|[H]appiness]] of the scientist lies not in possessing the truth, but in discovering...”
Max Planck (1858–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Know what is the purpose of life that you are inclined to serve, that you are drawn to. Do what makes your heart leap rather than simply follow some style or fashion. Not everyone can or should be a scientist. Not everyone can or should be any one thing. People need to know what kind of purpose they can serve.”
Jonas Salk (1914–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy — and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he will sound as naive as anyone untrained in the matter.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Knowledge can in part be set aside, and one can then go further in order to collect new; the natural scientist can set aside insects and flowers and then go further, but if the existing person sets aside the decision in existence, it is eo ipso lost, and he is changed.”
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Papers VI B 66, 1845
“I aroused Judith's contempt by asking what good all this was likely to do to mankind? There is no question that annoys your true scientist more.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most curiously, the very scientist who, in the service of the sinful king, was the brain behind the horror of the labyrinth, quite as readily can serve the purposes of freedom. But the hero-heart must be at hand. ...He is the hero of the way of thought—singlehearted, courageous, and full of faith that the truth, as he finds it, shall make us free.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical materialist.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants. A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is. Thus the Master is available to all people and doesn't reject anyone. He is ready to use all situations and doesn't waste anything. This is called embodying the light.”
Laozi (580–501 BC) said by 501 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992)
“No job too dirty for a fucking scientist.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But where does by far the bulk, the whole ambulance load, of pain really come from? Where must it come from? Isn't the true poet or painter a seer? Isn't he, actually, the only seer we have on earth? Most apparently not the scientist, most emphatically not the psychiatrist.”
J. D. Salinger (1919–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a certain category of fool—the overeducated, the academic, the journalist, the newspaper reader, the mechanistic "scientist", the pseudo-empiricist, those endowed with what I call "epistemic arrogance", this wonderful ability to discount what they did not see, the unobserved.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't care if I'm remembered or not when I'm dead. (A scientist I knew at General Electric, who was married to a woman named Josephine, said to me, "Why should I buy life insurance? If I die, I won't care what's happening to Jo. I won't care about anything. I'll be dead.")”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. That was the pebble by the seashore he really wanted to find.”
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A scientist ought to have a healthy disregard for coincidences.”
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A scientist's aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify.”
Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Close-up : I'm looking for a market for wisdom. : Leo Szilard, scientist" in LIFE magazine, Vol. 51, no. 9 (1 September 1961), p. 75
“I therefore suggest that in the style of the previous examples, a natural scientist, examining a single atom might well be able to asseverate the structure and history of the entire universe!" "Bah!" muttered Hurtiancz. "By the same token, a sensible man need listen to but a single word in order to recognize the whole for egregious nonsense.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement. Just as the electron is the last unit of matter discernible to the scientist. DESIRE is the seed of all achievement; the starting place, back of which there is nothing, or at least there is nothing of which we have any knowledge.”
Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It can be said with complete confidence that any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not enough that a problem should be "interesting" - almost any problem is interesting if it is studied in sufficient depth.”
Peter Medawar (1915–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A scientist is no more a collector and classifier of facts than a historian is a man who complies and classifies a chronology of the dates of great battles and major discoveries.”
Peter Medawar (1915–1987) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (with Jean Medawar) Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology, 1983, p. 27.
“The attempt to discover and promulgate the truth is nevertheless an obligation upon all scientists, one that must be persevered in no matter what the rebuffs—for otherwise what is the point in being a scientist?”
Peter Medawar (1915–1987) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (with Jean Medawar) Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology, 1983, p. 196.
“Hans had courage to burn. If he had been willing to knuckle under to the Nazis he would have stayed at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. But Hans was a scientist. He wouldn’t trim his notion of truth to fit political gangsters.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can be a doctor and I’ll still help you. You can be an engineer and I can help you. You can be a scientist and I’ll help you, whoever you are because I am not helping anything else. I am helping you! Peace on this Earth doesn’t begin by great ideas. Peace on Earth begins with you.”
Prem Rawat (born 1957) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kissimmee, Florida, November 10, 1978
“He's not even a mad scientist. He's merely a very upset engineer.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.”
Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But he persevered. That was what a scientist did, confronted with an enigma.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe you administrators can work it all out in the council.” You administrators. That put us in our place. Paper pushers, bureaucrats, politicians. Cut the politics. We were the ones who stood in the way of the scientist’s goal of unrestrained research and intellection.”
Greg Bear (1951–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As soon as we cease to believe in such an engineer and in a discourse which breaks with the received historical discourse, and as soon as we admit that every finite discourse is bound by a certain bricolage and that the engineer and the scientist are also species of bricoleurs, then the very idea of bricolage is menaced and the difference in which it took on its meaning breaks down.”
Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," Writing and Difference, tr. w/ intro & notes by Alan Bass. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1978. p. 285
“He is the only real revolutionary, the authentic scientist, because he alone knows how liddle he knows. He must be heartless. He lives in a cold, clear light. Yet dis is a funny t'ing: really, in private, he is not cold nor heartless—so much less cold than the Professional Optimists. ~ Gottlieb, Ch. 26”
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As truly as the mystic, the scientist is following a light; and it is not a false or an inferior light.”
Arthur Eddington (1882–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Molecular biology has no history for the young scientist,” one of the old guard declared not long ago. Sydney Brenner qualified that: “I hold the somewhat weaker view that history does exist for the young, but is divided into two epochs: the past two years, and everything that went before.”
Jonathan Weiner (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A scientist can pretend that his work isn’t himself, it’s merely the impersonal truth. An artist can’t hide behind the truth. He can’t hide anywhere.”
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course I am not religious—I don’t in fact see how any scientist who thinks at all deeply can be so ...”
Philip Warren Anderson (1923–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm still not that familiar with it [Intelligent Design]. I'm more familiar with it than most people, but nowhere near as familiar with it as a genuine expert in the subject. I don't pretend to be a scientist. I'm the person who moderates the discussion between and among the scientists.”
“Well, the first cause is not...it's lightning striking a mud puddle. See, and this is what the evolutionists say. And by the way, they may be right -- you know, I'm not a scientist, they could be right.”
“Like all real treasures of the mind, perception can be split into infinitely small fractions without losing its quality. The weeds in a city lot convey the same lesson as the redwoods; the farmer may see in his cow-pasture what may not be vouchsafed to the scientist adventuring in the South Seas.”
Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This has not been a scientist's war; it has been a war in which all have had a part. The scientists, burying their old professional competition in the demand of a common cause, have shared greatly and learned much. It has been exhilarating to work in effective partnership. Now, for many, this appears to be approaching an end. What are the scientists to do next?”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source