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Quotes about science

558 quotes from 241 people

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What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of “true scientific discourse.” It isn’t.
Jimmy Walesborn 1966Reply to a Change.org petition (March 2014), quoted by Boing Boing
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 Poincaré1854–1912Science and Method (1908), Part II. Ch. 2: Mathematical Definitions and Education, p. 129
- Thinking
Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Silent Spring (1962)
- Nature
I used to measure the heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. Although my mind was heaven-bound, the shadow of my body lies here.
Johannes Kepler1571–1630Epitaph he composed for himself a few months before he died, as quoted by Steven G. Krantz, Brian E. Blank, Calculusː Multivariable (2006) p. 126.
- Life & Death
A theory is the more impressive, the greater the simplicity of its premises, the more diverse things it connects, and the wider its scope.
Albert Einstein1879–1955“Autobiographical Notes” (1949)
A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1841–1935Writing for the Court, New Jersey v. New York, et al., 283 U.S. 336, 342 (1931).
- Nature
Relativity does set limits on what humans can ultimately do. But the universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human aspirations.
Carl Sagan1934–1996Cosmos (1980), p. 201
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
John Muir1838–1914The Yosemite (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
- Beauty
- Nature
He that planteth a tree is the servant of God,
He provideth a kindness for many generations,
And faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.
Henry van Dyke1852–1933The Friendly Trees.
- Nature
If you are cheerful, and wish to remain so, leave the study of astronomy alone. Of all the sciences, it alone deserves the character of the terrible.
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Two on a Tower (1882), Vol 1, ch. 4 (Swithin St Cleeve speaking to Viviette Constantine)
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
Arthur C. Clarke1917–2008Voices from the Sky: Previews of the Coming Space Age (1967)
- Morality
Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass, though but slowly.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Speech before the Colorado Live Stock Association, Denver, Colorado (August 29, 1910); in The New Nationalism (1910), p. 52
- Nature
- Responsibility
Nature has but one judgment on wrong conduct — if you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no reference to conduct as such — the judgment of death.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1841–1935Address at the dedication of the Northwestern University Law School Building, Chicago, Illinois (20 October 1902); republished in Holmes’ Collected Legal Papers (1937), p. 272.
- Nature
Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy the interposition of a deity. More humble, and I believe truer, to consider him created from animals.
Charles Darwin1809–1882“Notebook C” (1838), pp. 196–197
- Pride