Quotes about science
558 quotes from 241 people
I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.
Sydney Smith1771–1845Lady Holland’s Memoir (1855), Vol. II, letter to Miss Georgiana Harcourt (1838), p. 410Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Essay to Leo Baeck (1953), Ideas and OpinionsDarwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
Richard Dawkinsborn 1941The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 1 “Explaining the Very Improbable” (p. 6)The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.
Edward Abbey1927–1989“Shadows from the Big Woods”, p. 223Autumn wins you best by this its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay.
Robert Browning1812–1889Paracelsus (1835), Part 1.Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends upon ignorance.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970The Analysis of Mind (1921), Lecture I: Recent Criticisms of “Consciousness”And striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882May-Day and Other Pieces (1867), May-DaySociology is the science which has the most methods and the least results.
Henri Poincaré1854–1912Science and Method (1908), Part I. Ch. 1: The Selection of Facts, p. 19O lady! we receive but what we give
And in our life alone does Nature live.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772–1834Dejection: An Ode (1802), St. 4The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
Steven Weinberg1933–2021The First Three Minutes (1977), EpilogueScience may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970A History of Western Philosophy (1945)Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
Arthur C. Clarke1917–2008“Maelstrom II” (1965)It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900De Profundis (1897)Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.
Henry Ward Beecher1813–1887Life Thoughts (1858), p. 234