Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Scientists

Science is Christian, not when it condemns itself to the letter of things, but when, in the infinitely little, it discovers as many mysteries and as much depth and power as in the infinitely great.
Edgar Quinet (1803–75) French Historian, Poet

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic

Science is the systematic classification of experience.
George Henry Lewes (1817–78) English Philosopher, Man of Letters

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Sociologist, Political Theorist

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

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

Whether a person shows themselves to be a genius in science or in writing a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, or the deed, is living and can live on.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet

There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
Louis Pasteur (1822–95) French Biologist

Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat

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

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.
Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian

When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist

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

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

Faith is a fine invention when Gentleman can see, but microscopes are prudent in an emergency.
Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet

Science is for those who learn, poetry is for those who know.
Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon

Science has not solved problems, only shifted the points of problems.
Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842–1933) American Clergyman, Civic Reformer

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist

In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world.
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?
Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic

Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English Political Philosopher

If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish Physicist

Do what we can, summer will have its flies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher

Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.
Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee

From man or angel the great Architect did wisely to conceal, and not divulge his secrets to be scanned by them who ought rather admire; or if they list to try conjecture, he his fabric of the heavens left to their disputes, perhaps to move his laughter at their quaint opinions wide hereafter, when they come to model heaven calculate the stars, how they will wield the mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive to save appearances, how gird the sphere with centric and eccentric scribbled o’er, and epicycle, orb in orb.
John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater

Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.
Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer

If politicians and scientist were lazier, how much happier we should all be.
Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *