There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn’t any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.
—Claude Bernard (1813–78) French Physiologist
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
—William Lawrence Bragg (1890–1970) British Physicist
Science is all those things which are confirmed to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold one’s provisional consent.
—Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American Paleontologist
But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about differential calculus, quantum theory, or the obscene and so inanely liturgical ordeals of the precession of the equinoxes.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
—Louis Pasteur (1822–95) French Biologist
Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.
—Georges Braque (1882–1963) French Painter, Artist, Sculptor
Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.
—Will Durant (1885–1981) American Historian, Philosopher, Memoirist, Socialist
The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.
—Wayne Dyer (b.1940) American Motivational Writer, Author, Motivational Speaker
A single mind can acquire a fair knowledge of the whole field of science, and find plenty of time to spare for ordinary human affairs. Not many people take the trouble to do so. But without a knowledge of science one cannot understand current events. That is why our modem literature and art are mostly so unreal.
—J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) British Biologist, Geneticist
Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good, are the two most important aims of philosophy.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Material science now has the clear possibility and promise of the systematic utilization of all the natural resources of the earth for the good of the whole human race…. Maintaining and improving the standard of living of all the peoples of the earth through increasing use of mechanical horsepower and the scientific approach is now one of the keys to peace in the world.
—Charles E. Wilson (1886–1972) American Businessperson
Science is what you know, philosophy what you don’t know.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
There’s nothing colder than chemistry.
—Anita Loos (1888–1981) American Actor, Novelist, Screenwriter
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.
—Ashley Montagu (1905–1999) British-American Anthropologist
Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Thomas Edison reads not for entertainment but to increase his store of knowledge. He sucks in information as eagerly as the bee sucks honey from flowers. The whole world, so to speak, pours its wisdom into his mind. He regards it as a criminal waste of time to go through the slow and painful ordeal of ascertaining things for one’s self if these same things have already been ascertained and made available by others. In Edison’s mind knowledge is power.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
There could be whole antiworlds and antipeople made out of antiparticles. However, if you ever meet your antiself, don’t shake hands! You would both vanish in a great flash of light.
—Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) English Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist, Academic
It is certain that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions in which true virtue and honor consist. It very rarely happens that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, an honest man, whatever frailties may attend him.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
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) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
—Henri Poincare (1854–1912) French Mathematician
Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) Spanish Educator, Philosopher, Author
Thus will the fondest dream of Phallic science be realized: a pristine new planet populated entirely by little boy clones of great scientific entrepreneurs free to smash atoms, accelerate particles, or, if they are so moved, build pyramids — without any social relevance or human responsibility at all.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
God pity the man of seience who believes in nothing but what he can prove by scientific methods; for if ever a human being needed divine pity he does.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–81) American Editor, Novelist
In praising science, it does not follow that we must adopt the very poor philosophies which scientific men have constructed. In philosophy they have much more to learn than to teach.
—William Motter Inge (1913–73) American Playwright, Novelist
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man’s upper chamber, if it has common sense on the ground floor.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Science is all metaphor.
—Timothy Leary (1920–96) American Psychologist, Author
If they don’t depend on true evidence, scientists are no better than gossips.
—Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Biographer
Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
—Karl Popper (1902–94) Austrian-born British Philosopher
Science, which cuts its way through the muddy pond of daily life without mingling with it, casts its wealth to right and left, but the puny boatmen do not know how to fish for it.
—Alexander Herzen (1812–70) Russian Revolutionary, Writer
The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics.
Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
—Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American Novelist, Film Producer, Film Director, Screenwriter
Freedom is the oxygen without which science cannot breathe.
—David Sarnoff (1891–1972) American Broadcaster, Businessman
Many talk like philosophers yet live like fools.
—Common Proverb
A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that science when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his life.
—R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) English Philosopher, Historian, Archaeologist
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
—George Goodman (b.1930) American Economist, Author
There is an insistent tendency among serious social scientists to think of any institution which features rhymed and singing commercials, intense and lachrymose voices urging highly improbable enjoyment, caricatures of the human esophagus in normal and impaired operation, and which hints implausibly at opportunities for antiseptic seduction as inherently trivial. This is a great mistake. The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial television and could not exist in its present form without it.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
Science is the only truth and it is the great lie. It knows nothing, and people think it knows everything. It is misrepresented. People think that science is electricity, automobilism, and dirigible balloons. It is something very different. It is life devouring itself. It is the sensibility transformed into intelligence. It is the need to know stifling the need to live. It is the genius of knowledge vivisecting the vital genius.
—Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French Poet, Novelist, Critic
A tool is but the extension of a man’s hand and a machine is but a complex tool; and he that invents a machine augments the power of man and the well-being of mankind.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Researchers, with science as their authority, will be able to cut Animals up, alive, into small pieces, drop them from a great height to see if they are shattered by the fall, or deprive them of sleep for sixteen days and nights continuously for the purposes of an iniquitous monograph… Animal trust, undeserved faith, when at last will you turn away from us? Shall we never tire of deceiving, betraying, tormenting animals before they cease to trust us?
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
If we are to become the masters of science, not its slaves, we must learn to use its immense power to good purpose. The machine itself has neither mind nor soul nor moral sense. Only man has been endowed with these godlike attributes. Every age has its destined duty. Ours is to nurture an awareness of those divine attributes and a sense of responsibility in giving them expression.
—David Sarnoff (1891–1972) American Broadcaster, Businessman
If politicians and scientist were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) Italian-born French Poet, Playwright
The sciences are of sociable disposition, and flourish best in the neighborhood of each other; nor is there any branch of learning but may be helped and improved by assistance drawn from other arts.
—William Blackstone (1723–80) English Judge, Jurist, Academic
Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.
—Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) Scottish-born American Inventor, Engineer, Academic
No delusion is greater than the notion that method and industry can make up for lack of mother-wit, either in science or in practical life.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
The doubter is a true man of science; he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.
—Claude Bernard (1813–78) French Physiologist
Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may from a raw recruit, and its methods differ from those of common sense, only as the guardsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–67) American Nuclear Physicist
A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.
—Robert Henri (1865–1929) American Painter, Teacher
Science is the search for truth – it is not a game in which one tries to beat his opponent, to do harm to others. We need to have the spirit of science in international affairs, to make the conduct of international affairs the effort to find t he right solution, the just solution of international problems, not the effort by each nation to get the better of other nations, to do harm to them when it is possible.
—Linus Pauling (1901–94) American Scientist, Peace Activist
Science is the labor and handicraft of the mind.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? Our poets do not write about it; our artists do not try to portray this remarkable thing. The value of science remains unsung by singers: you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.
—P. D. James (b.1920) British Novelist
We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.
—Marie Curie (1867–1934) Polish-born French Physicist, Chemist
I shall devote only a few lines to the expression of my belief in the importance of science … it is by this daily striving after knowledge that man has raised himself to the unique position he occupies on earth, and that his power and well-being have continually increased.
—Marie Curie (1867–1934) Polish-born French Physicist, Chemist
An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity.
—Margaret J. Wheatley American Management Consultant, Writer
Science has not solved problems, only shifted the points of problems.
—Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842–1933) American Clergyman, Civic Reformer
There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be.
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American Philosopher, Logician, Mathematician, Scientist
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian Astronomer, Physicist, Mathematician
There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
—Isaac Asimov (1920–92) Russian-born American Writer, Scientist
Science is the systematic classification of experience.
—George Henry Lewes (1817–78) English Philosopher, Literary Critic, Art Critic
Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
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 (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
It is possible to enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. In fact, you can learn to be an expert connoisseur of music without being able to play a note on any instrument. Of course, music would come to a halt if nobody ever learned to play it. But if everybody grew up thinking that music was synonymous with playing it, think how relatively impoverished many lives would be. Couldn’t we learn to think of science in the same way?
—Richard Dawkins (b.1941) British Evolutionary Biologist, Atheist
The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
Science is an integral part of culture. It’s not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It’s one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.
—Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American Paleontologist
Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.
—Henri Poincare (1854–1912) French Mathematician
Architect: One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
—John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist
The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced — by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Art and science have their meeting point in method.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
—Max Planck (1858–1947) German Theoretical Physicist
The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
—Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) English Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist, Academic
In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–67) American Nuclear Physicist
Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
—Max Planck (1858–1947) German Theoretical Physicist
Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
Science is but an image of the truth.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Science is the topography of ignorance.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Sociologist, Political Theorist