Famous quotes
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“The logic is that by striving to model the great scientist and implement a work plan to surpass such scientist, the student will learn the way of the scientist and work towards achieving greater heights. When there is a will, there is a way. The outcome is predicted to be improved achievement and better attitude to STEM.”
Peter Okebukola (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Facts, facts, facts,' cries the scientist if he wants to emphasize the necessity of a firm foundation for science. What is a fact? A fact is a thought that is true. But the scientist will surely not recognize something which depends on men's varying states of mind to be the firm foundation of science.”
Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gottlob Frege (1956). "The thought: A logical inquiry" in: Peter Ludlow (1997) Readings in the Philosophy of Language. p. 27
“Current science is not only concerned with seeking the truth. His part of scientific spirit, which in no way resembles science as it is commonly conceived, is far from equaling that of an anti-scientific spirit hostile to the first, but apparently much more scientific than him. p.287”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this complex world, science, the scientific method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going. If we blow ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent application of science.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ironically, philosophers of science owe the Creationists a debt. For the “scientific” Creationists have constructed a glorious fake, which we can use to illustrate the differences between science and pseudoscience. By examining their scientific pretensions, I have tried to convey a sense of the nature and methods of science.”
Philip Kitcher (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Increasing the impact of science and building confidence in science can only be achieved through science education, scientific mediation and the development of scientific and technical skills.”
Rajaâ Cherkaoui El Moursli (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My purpose is not just to be a scientist, my purpose is really to do conservation through education, through innovation, through storytelling. As a conservation scientist, you’re only producing scientific articles that are only read by other scientists. But when you are on National Geographic or Disney, that inspires people and educates them to care about nature.”
Paula Kahumbu (born 1966) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Meet a champion of Kenyan wildlife protection, The Financial Times (March 10, 2023)
“I see myself as a scientist. When you think about the scientific method, whether your discipline is environmental science, marine science, geology, or something else… it doesn’t really matter.”
Estella Atekwana wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The media is key to creating this link between science and society as science not communicated is science lost. Publishing findings in journals is good but the information therein never reaches the public. By reporting about scientific developments, the media contribute to public understanding of and engagement with science and technology.”
Elioda Tumwesigye (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Modern science is no longer denying spirit. And that, that is epochal. As Hans Küng remarked, the standard answer to "Do you believe in Spirit?" used to be, "Of course not, I'm a scientist", but it might very soon become, "Of course I believe in Spirit. I'm a scientist.”
Ken Wilber (born 1949) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes: Exploring the Leading Edge of Science (1982), Introduction
“Science looks and observes and art see and foresees. Every great scientist has experienced a moment when the artist in him saved the scientist.”
Naum Gabo (1890–1977) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Naum Gabo (1937) "Editorial", p. 9
“Science is a special kind of explanation of the things we see around us. It starts with a problem and curiosity. Something strikes the scientist as odd. It doesn’t fit in with the usual explanation. Maybe harder thinking or more careful observation will resolve the problem. If it remains apuzzle, it stimulates the scientist’s imagination.”
“Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether?”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For hundreds of years the Bible was the standard, and whenever anything was asserted in any science contrary to-the Bible, the church immediately denounced the scientist. I admit the standard has been changed, and ministers are very busy, not trying to show that science does not agree with the Bible, but that the Bible agrees with science.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have no idea what science will look in, say, twenty or thirty years. ... Every scientist has to bet. Science is not a science — it's an art and a gamble.”
Andrew Strominger (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A theory can never be proven absolutely true, therefore there is no end to scientific endeavor. A true scientific theory is always open to be disproved, and the burden of proof is continually placed on the scientist.”
Kristine Larsen (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is an exercise in fictional science, or science fiction, if you like that better. Not for amusement: science fiction in the service of science. Or just science, if you agree that fiction is a part of it, always was, and always will be as long as our brains are only miniscule fragments of the universe, much too small to hold all the facts of the world but not too idle to speculate about them.”
Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science teachers have a special responsibility to study the nature of science as a discipline, how it works, how it is described by sociologists, historians, and philosophers from different points of view…. Science education cannot just be about learning science: Its foundation must be learning about the nature of science as a human activity.”
Jay Lemke (born 1946) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 175; as cited in: Hanuscin, Deborah L., and Michele H. Lee. "Teaching Against the Mystique of Science: Literature Based Approaches in Elementary Teacher Education." Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum presentations (M…
“You often hear that the language of science is mathematics. I don't completely agree with the article. I don't think it is a definite article. Mathematics is "a" language of science. But, it is only "a" language of science. The language of science is English. The language of science is Spanish.”
Daniel A. Vallero (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Feminists—in and out of science—often condemn masculine bias in the sciences from the vantage point of commitment to a value-free science. Androcentric bias, once identified, can then be seen as a violation of the rules, as "bad" science. Feminist science, by contrast, can eliminate that bias and produce better, good, more true, or gender-free science.”
Helen Longino (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We see scientific societies acknowledging as "sustaining associates" a dozen or more giants of a related industry. When the scientific organization speaks, whose voice do we hear-that of science? or of the sustaining industry? It might be a less serious situation if this voice were always clearly identified, but the public assumes it is hearing the voice of science.”
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with.”
Max Planck (1858–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery has its own beauty.”
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)
“...the 'size' of science has doubled steadily every 15 years. In a century this means a factor of 100. For every single scientific paper or for every single scientist in 1670, there were 100 in 1770, 10,000 in 1870 and 1,000,000 in 1970.”
John Ziman (1925–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the scientist’s house are many mansions... Outsiders often regard science as a sober enterprise, but we who are inside see it as the most romantic of all callings. Both views are right. The romance adheres to the processes of scientific discovery, the sobriety to the responsibility for verification...”
Pat Langley (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (2005).
“Because the scientific method tells us what’s true," I say. "No, it doesn’t," he says. "Does it not?" "No," he says. "It’s bollocks." "Right," I say, slightly startled. "It’s bollocks?" I wonder, if science is bollocks, how his TV came to exist. "It’s not that all science is bollocks," he decides. "The basis of the way science judges reality is bollocks.”
David Icke (born 1952) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Will Storr "It's a jungle out there" The Sunday Times (16 June 2013)
“Today, we are seeing hundreds of years of scientific discovery being challenged by people who simply disregard facts that don’t happen to agree with their agendas. Some call it "pseudo-science," others call it "faith-based science," but when you notice where this negligence tends to take place, you might as well call it "political science.”
Michael Bloomberg (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No science has ever been born on a specific day. Each science emerges out of a convergence of an increased interest in some class of problems and the development of scientific methods, techniques, and tools which are adequate to solve these problems. Operations Research (O.R.) is no exception. Its roots are as old as science and the management function. Its name dates back only to 1940.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 3; Partly cited in: Ivor Grattan-Guinness (2003) Companion encyclopedia of the history and philosophy of the mathematical sciences, Vol 1. p. 841
“Religion can probably out live any scientific discoveries which could be made. It can accommodate itself to them. The root cause of the decay of faith has not been any particular discovery of science, but rather the general spirit of science and certain basic assumptions upon which modern science, from the seventeenth century onwards, has proceeded.”
Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. "Izzy," she would say, "did you ask a good question today?" That difference — asking good questions — made me become a scientist.”
Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Great Minds Start With Questions" in Parents Magazine (September 1993).
“Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a "correct" one by excessive elaboration. On the contrary following William of Occam he should seek an economical description of natural phenomena. Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity.”
George E. P. Box (1919–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist.”
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Star (1959) and Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green.
“An overtly expressed political commitment does not debar a scientist from viewing nature accurately—if only because no honest scientist or effective political activist would be foolish enough to advance a program in evident discord with the world as we find it.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But you are a scientist, Michael Poole; and the skill of a scientist is in asking the right question.”
Stephen Baxter (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell me, scientist to scientist, do you honestly think it will work?” “We won’t know until we try,” Naqi said. Any other answer would have been politically hazardous: too much optimism and the politicians would have started asking just why the expensive project was needed in the first place. Too much pessimism and they would ask exactly the same question.”
Alastair Reynolds (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The danger for an African scientist, because there are so few of us, is that you end up taking administrative positions, or leadership positions when you are not ready yet. You can end up being caught in a position where you can’t learn, you can’t mature, you can’t be a proper scientist – whatever that really is.”
Julie Makani (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm one of these people and there is another beamline scientist (who) was also in Italy and he also joined two years ago. Another beamline scientist was also in Switzerland and he came back to SESAME and it’s happening.’”
Gihan Kamel (born 1976) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: You’re originally from Egypt, you studied for your PhD in Italy and then you moved back to the Middle East to take up your position in Jordan in 2015. Are you an example of brain drain reversal in action?
“I can only describe myself as a part-time scientist, if a pure mathematician can be called a scientist at all.”
Mangala Narlikar (1943–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But when I got into a room like that where there were scientists, I kind of thought of myself as a scientist and I left my woman hat outside so I could just be a scientist with all of them. So that is how I overcame some of these challenges.”
“Evangelical atheists preach the need for a scientific view of things, but a settled view does not go with scientific method. If we know anything it is that most of the theories that prevail at any one time are false. Scientific theories are not components of a world-view but tools we use to tinker with the world.”
John Gray (philosopher) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A theory is only as good as its assumptions. If the premises are false, the theory has no real scientific value. The only scientific criterion for judging the validity of a scientific theory is a confrontation with the data of experience.”
Maurice Allais (1911–2010) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience (1997), p. 591
“The need for general scientific understanding by the public has never been larger, and the penalty for scientific illiteracy never harsher… Lack of scientific fundamentals causes people to make foolish decisions about issues such as the toxicity of chemicals, the efficacy of medicines, the changes in the global climate.”
Peter Agre (born 1949) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Peter Agre's speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 2003
“The responsibility for the creation of new scientific knowledge — and for most of its application — rests on that small body of men and women who understand the fundamental laws of nature and are skilled in the techniques of scientific research. We shall have rapid or slow advance on any scientific frontier depending on the number of highly qualified and trained scientists exploring it.”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Induction was shown to be untenable as a scientific method by Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959). Instead, advances in scientific understanding come ideally from hypothetico-deductivism: firstly, development of a hypothesis in relation to a problem situation, and secondly, its testing in relation to all relevant knowledge and furthermore by its great explanatory power.”
John Carew Eccles (1903–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Decisions cannot be made on purely scientific grounds. We can, however, use scientific information to guide our moral and political judgments. No matter which side of the debate we take in any public dispute, we should, at a minimum, get the facts straight and understand the scientific dimensions of the problem.”
Harold J. Morowitz (1927–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is important to recognize that racism was in origin a scientific doctrine. Whenever a scientific doctrine is discarded, as witness the idea of the acquired inheritance of environmental influences, the old scientific doctrine, as it lingers on in popular thought, is blamed on religion or popular superstition!”
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I claim that the success of current scientific theories is no miracle. It is not even surprising to the scientific (Darwinist) mind. For any scientific theory is born into a life of fierce competition, a jungle red in tooth and claw. Only the successful theories survive—the ones which in fact latched onto the actual regularities in nature.”
Bas van Fraassen (born 1941) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Scientific Image (1980), p. 40.
“A special charm of studying Indian philosophy today is that it is more truly Western, in the modem, scientific sense, than any system of philosophy that the West has produced. Whereas Western rationalism has broken down under the impact of scientific discoveries, Indian thought cheerfully rides the crest of the wave, and is only pushed higher by every new scientific finding.”
Kriyananda (1926–2013) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kriyananda, Swami (1. Donald Walters) The Hindu Way of Awakening: Its Revelation, Its Symbols Crystal Clarity Publishers 1998 Canada. p. 12 - 86 and 150 527Kriyananda, Swami (1. Donald Walters) Crzses in Modern Thought …