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Quotes about science

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The idea of science as a method rather than as a body of knowledge is not widely appreciated outside of science, or indeed in some corridors inside of science.
Carl Sagan1934–1996Broca’s Brain (1979), Chapter 7, “Venus and Dr. Velikovsky” (p. 96)
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
Thích Nhất Hạnh1926–2022Touching Peace (1992), p. 1. Parallax Press
- Beauty
- Nature
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
Steven Weinberg1933–2021The First Three Minutes (1977; second edition 1993) (1993), Epilogue, p. 155
Of course, like every other man of intelligence and education I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised.
Woodrow Wilson1856–1924Letter to Winterton C. Curtis (29 August 1922)
Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics (1927)
- Knowledge
To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.
Richard Dawkinsborn 1941The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 6 “Origins and Miracles” (p. 141)
- Anti-God
Human subtlety…will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, ed. J. P. Richter, No. 837
- Nature
Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Maxims and Reflections (1833), Maxim 428, trans. Stopp
- Thinking
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, March, 1912, as quoted in Gaither’s Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2012), p. 1318
The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you accept Nature as She is — absurd.
Richard Feynman1918–1988QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), p. 10
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Immanuel Kant1724–1804Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Translated by Lewis White Beck
- Morality
- Nature
The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.
Karl Popper1902–1994The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Ch. 2 “On the Problem of a Theory of Scientific Method”, Section 11: Methodological Rules as Conventions, p. 32.
This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.
Heraclitus535–470 BCFragment 30
- Nature
Geometry has two great treasures: one is the Theorem of Phythagoras, the other the division of a line in extreme and mean ratio. The first we can compare to a mass of gold; the other we may call a precious jewel.
Johannes Kepler1571–1630As quoted in Karl Fink, A Brief History of Mathematics (1903), tr. W. W. Beman and D. E. Smith
The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological — technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science.
Stephen Hawking1942–2018From Hawking’s article A Brief History of Relativity, in Time magazine (31 December 1999)
- Change
- Technology