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Quotes about science

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He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.
Jack London1876–1916The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter VIIn context
- Nature
- Power
When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.
Jack London1876–1916The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter VIIIn context
- Animals
- Nature
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), Part I, section 3.
- Nature
If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 13.
- Nature
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882The Song of Hiawatha (1855), III. Hiawatha’s ChildhoodIn context
- Nature
Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882The Song of Hiawatha (1855), IntroductionIn context
- Nature
- Poetry
West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut.
H. P. Lovecraft1890–1937The Colour Out of Space (1927)
- Nature
The laws of nature are sublime, but there is a moral sublimity before which the highest intelligences must kneel and adore.
Horace Mann1796–1859A Few Thoughts for a Young Man (1850), pp. 37–38
- Morality
- Nature
No matter how seemingly unconnected with human affairs or remote from human interests a newly-discovered truth may appear to be, time and genius will some day make it minister to human welfare.
Horace Mann1796–1859Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867), p. 185
By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun.
Katherine Mansfield1888–1923Entry in her journal (10 October 1922) which she tore out to send to John Middleton Murry, before changing her mind
- Health
- Nature
The product of mental labor — science — always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.
Karl Marx1818–1883Addenda, “Relative and Absolute Surplus Value” in Economic Manuscripts (1861-63)
- Economics
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
John Masefield1878–1967Sea-Fever (1902)In context
- Nature
Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality.
Henri Matisse1869–1954“Interview with Henri Matisse” by Jacques Guenne, L’Art Vivant (15 September 1925), translated by Jack Flam in Matisse on Art (1995)
- Art
- Nature
An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythms, by effort that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.
Henri Matisse1869–1954Letter to Henry Clifford (14 February 1948)
- Art
- Nature
We may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.
James Clerk Maxwell1831–1879Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics, Cambridge (October 1871), in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, ed. W. D. Niven (1890; Dover repr. 2003), vol. 2, p. 243