Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about science

558 quotes from 241 people

Most readBy personPage 15 of 38

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Nature (1836), Nature
- Nature
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Journal (25 May 1843)
- Nature
ALL THIS IS A DREAM. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency.
Michael Faraday1791–1867Laboratory journal entry #10,040 (19 March 1849); published in The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870) Vol. II, edited by Henry Bence Jones , p. 248
Nature is our kindest friend and best critic in experimental science if we only allow her intimations to fall unbiased on our minds.
Michael Faraday1791–1867Letter to John Tyndall (19 April 1851), The Correspondence of Michael Faraday, letter 2411
- Nature
There is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle.
Michael Faraday1791–1867The Chemical History of a Candle (1860)
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.
Richard Feynman1918–1988
- Sex
To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.
Richard Feynman1918–1988The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 2, “The Relation of Mathematics to Physics,” p. 58
All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists know it.
Richard Feynman1918–1988
I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.
Richard Feynman1918–1988The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 6, “Probability and Uncertainty — the Quantum Mechanical View of Nature,” p. 129
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
Richard Feynman1918–1988address “What is Science?”, presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320
The “paradox” is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality “ought to be.”
Richard Feynman1918–1988The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964), volume III; lecture 18, “Angular Momentum”; section 18-3, “The annihilation of positronium”; p. 18-9
Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science — for to fill your heart with love is enough!
Richard Feynman1918–1988Note to the mother of Marcus Chown, who had admired the profile of Feynman presented in the BBC TV Horizon program “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out” (1981)
- Love
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
I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.
Richard Feynman1918–1988“Simulating Physics with Computers”, International Journal of Theoretical Physics, volume 21, 1982, p. 467-488, at p. 471
We are not to tell Nature what she’s gotta be!
Richard Feynman1918–1988Lecture 1. “Photons: Corpuscles of Light” (1979) Sir Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures, University of Auckland.
- Nature