Quotes on Science

Darwin gives courage to the rest of science that we shall end up understanding literally everything, springing from almost nothing - a thought extremely hard to comprehend and believe.

Experimentation is the least arrogant method of gaining knowledge. The experimenter humbly asks a question of nature.

Science without conscience is the death of the soul.

Matter, though divisible in an extreme degree, is nevertheless not infinitely divisible. That is, there must be some point beyond which we cannot go in the division of matter. ... I have chosen the word “atom” to signify these ultimate particles.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

Fashion is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

Satire is a composition of salt and mercury; and it depends upon the different mixture and preparation of those ingredients, that it comes out a noble medicine, or a rank poison.

I would designate as science fiction in the best sense: they are visions and anticipations by which we seek to attain a true knowledge, but, in fact, they are only imaginations whereby we seek to draw near to the reality.

I've always felt that the human-centered approach to computer science leads to more interesting, more exotic, more wild, and more heroic adventures than the machine-supremacy approach, where information is the highest goal.

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

What delights us in visible beauty is the invisible.

I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this-never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be-usually is, in fact-a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

The first possibility of rural cleanliness lies in water supply.

If there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself. Men and women are not content to comfort themselves with tales of gods and giants, or to confine their thoughts to the daily affairs of life; they also build telescopes and satellites and accelerators and sit at their desks for endless hours working out the meaning of the data they gather.

It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means 'is and never has been' that's one thing - if it means 'there is none', that was a completely true statement.

'Conservation' (the conservation law) means this ... that there is a number, which you can calculate, at one moment-and as nature undergoes its multitude of changes, this number doesn't change. That is, if you calculate again, this quantity, it'll be the same as it was before. An example is the conservation of energy: there's a quantity that you can calculate according to a certain rule, and it comes out the same answer after, no matter what happens, happens.

All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers, so that the aim of exact science is to reduce the problems of nature to the determination of quantities by operations with numbers.