Quotes and text excerpts about "science"

“ Science is the redeemer of the physical world. It opens our eyes to its true inwardness, and purges it of the coarse and brutal qualities with which, in our practical lives, it is associated. It has its inner world of activities and possibilities of which our senses give us no hint. This inner world of molecules and atoms and electrons, thrilled and vibrating with energy, the infinitely little, the almost infinitely rapid, in the bosom of the infinitely vast and distant and automatic—what a revelation it all is! ”

“ Science is unchangeable, impersonal, general, abstract, insensible, like the laws of which it is but the ideal reproduction, reflected or mental - that is cerebral (using this word to remind us that science itself is but a material product of a material organ, the brain) . Life is wholly fugitive and temporary, but also wholly palpitating with reality and individuality, sensibility, sufferings, joys, aspirations, needs, and passions. It alone spontaneously creates real things and; beings. Science creates nothing; it establishes and recognises only the creations of life. ”

“ Science is a knowledge of the laws of Nature, and nothing remains for us but to take Nature as we find it; and, as matter is mixed up with every thing, we cannot ignore it. There have been systems of thought in which the consideration of matter was allowed no place, but they have been futile and fruitless; science, on the other hand, is a system of thought which respects the order of things, and includes matter as the first and constant object of inquiry; and it has opened a new realm of truth, and changed the course of human affairs. ”

“ Science is unquestionably the most powerful material factor in the world today. It enables man to escape catastrophe on land and sea, to stay the famine and prevent the pestilence, for which the earlier desperate expedients of magic and supplication were wholly unavailing. ”

“ Science has given his beloved sleep and wrapped in happy dreams the throbbing nerves of pain. Science is the destroyer of disease, builder of happy homes, the preserver of life and love. Science is the teacher of every virtue, the enemy of every vice. Science has given the true basis of morals, the origin and office of conscience, revealed the nature of obligation, of duty, of virtue in its highest, noblest forms, and has demonstrated that true happiness is the only possible good. Science has slain the monsters of superstition, and destroyed the authority of inspired books. ”

“ Madam, science is a very great ornament, and a thing of marvellous use, especially in persons raised to that degree of fortune in which you are. And, in truth, in persons of mean and low condition, it cannot perform its true and genuine office, being naturally more prompt to assist in the conduct of war, in the government of peoples, in negotiating the leagues and friendships of princes and foreign nations, than in forming a syllogism in logic, in pleading a process in law, or in prescribing a dose of pills in physic. ”

“ Only science interests me. When I take my last breath I shall still believe that Science is the most important, the most beautiful, the most necessary thing in the life of man; that she has always been and always will be the highest manifestation of love, and that by her alone will man triumph over nature and himself. ”

“ Science is precisely the place where nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand use authority the most. The chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy which the authorities teach is the only science which most of us possess.
There is another realm, however, where we never think of taking such an attitude. They tell us that friendship is beautiful. Is that true? Would we ever think of saying that we do not know, ourselves, but that we rely on the authorities? Far better to say that our experience with friendship has been unhappy and that we personally question its utility! ”

“ Science embraces something spiritual or a revelation from a higher state of being. Science is the name of that wisdom that accounts for all phenomena that the natural man or beast cannot understand.
To illustrate. You throw a ball into the air, every child will soon learn that the ball will return. This is not science. But to know understandingly that it will return with just as much energy as it received, is science. Science is in the act, although the person knows it not, and God is in the world and the world knows Him not. This principle Jesus tried to teach to man. ”

“ Science is simply the truth about natural phenomena, so far as we can reach it. Some of you may become men of science, and you will probably advance much farther than we can do at present, and you will add to science, I hope, by your own work. The majority, however, will not follow scientific pursuits, but I trust this course of lectures will lead you always to keep a mind open for the reception of truth, from whatever quarter it may come, and that you will always cherish a lively sympathy with scientific men and with scientific progress. ”

“ Science cannot go outside of matter and its laws for an explanation of any phenomena that appear in matter. It goes inside of matter instead, and in its mysterious molecular attractions and repulsions, in the whirl and dance of the atoms and electrons, in their emanations and transformations, in their amazing potencies and activities, sees, or seems to see, the secret of the origin of life itself. ”

“ Science Is an Attitude of Mind Toward Life.—As usually defined, science represents a classified body of knowledge logically arranged with the purpose of arriving at definite principles or truths by processes of investigation and comparison. But the largest part of science is found in its method of approaching the truth as compared with religion, philosophy, or disconnected knowledge obtained by casual observation. In many ways it is in strong contrast with speculative philosophy and with dogmatic theology, both of which lack sufficient data for scientific development. ”

“ Science taught man to enchain, not his fellows, but the forces of nature, forces that have no backs to be scarred, no limbs for chains to chill and eat, forces that have no hearts to break, forces that never know fatigue, forces that shed no tears. Science is the great physician. ”

“ Science is that knowledge which enables us to demonstrate so far as our limited faculties permit, that the appearances which we recognise in the world around us are dependent in definite ways on certain properties of matter: science is that knowledge which enables, or tends to enable us, to assign its true place in the series of events constituting the universe, to any and every thing which we can perceive. ”

“ Science and art are fine things: but just because they are fine things men ought not to spoil them by associating them with depravity;—by freeing themselves from man's duty to serve by labour his own life and the lives of other men. ”

“ Science always has been, is, and always will be modest, thoughtful, truthful. It has but one object: The ascertainment of truth. It has no prejudice, no hatred. It is in the realm of the intellect and cannot be swayed or changed by passion. It does not try to please God, to gain heaven or avoid hell. It is for this world, for the use of man. ”

“ The real truth is that science is not man's nature, it is mere knowledge and training. By knowing the laws of the material universe you do not change your deeper humanity. You can borrow knowledge from others, but you cannot borrow temperament. ”

“ The science is a body of objective knowledge founded on real analysis, synthesis, and comparison; actual sight of the things studied guides the scientific researcher and dictates the questions he is to ask himself. ”

“ Physical science is a product of our thinking as to external things. If, therefore, the thinking brain and the external nature which it studies are both of them the fortuitous products of blind tendencies in a process of continuous flux and vicissitude, our science can embody no elements of eternal truth nor any conceptions as to the plans of a higher creative reason. ”

“ A point to be carefully noted is the distinction between science and art. “Science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion” (p. 102) . Science is an “activity of the understanding which demands preparation and a certain sequence of knowledge, so that one cannot learn trigonometry before knowing geometry.” ”

“ Science, my son, must be God’s servant. It can do nothing against Him, it is only by His grace that it arrives at the truth. All the solutions which people nowadays pretend to discover and which seemingly destroy dogma will some day be recognised as false, for God’s truth will remain victorious when the times shall be accomplished. That is a very simple certainty, known even to little children, and it would suffice for the peace and salvation of mankind, if mankind would content itself with it. ”

“ Science has come as a challenge to both our courage and our honesty. It covertly taunts us with being afraid to face the universe as it is; if we look and are saddened, we have seemed to prove ourselves less than men. For this advance of scientific speculation has seemed only to increase the gulf between the proven and certain facts, and all the values and significances of life that our reactions to its richness have produced in us. And so incorrigibly honest is the texture of the human mind that we cannot continue to believe in and cultivate things that we no longer consider to be real. ”

“ SCIENCE is the topography of ignorance. From a few elevated points we triangulate vast spaces, inclosing infinite unknown details. We cast the lead, and draw up a little sand from abysses we may never reach with our dredges.
The best part of our knowledge is that which teaches us where knowledge leaves off and ignorance begins. Nothing more clearly separates a vulgar from a superior mind, than the confusion in the first between the little that it truly knows, on the one hand, and what it half knows and what it thinks it knows on the other. ”

“ Let us see if there is anything scientific about Christian Science. To begin with, men of science never try to suppress inquiry, because inquiry only helps to advance their cause, which can advance in no other way.
Science is investigation. Eddyism, on the other hand, is a dogma.
Science is knowledge, verified, classified, and placed within the reach of all. Eddyism is a copyrighted cult.
Science is free; in science we do not have to secure permission before observing, studying, inventing, or teaching. But Mrs. Eddy reads out of church the independent thinker or practitioner. ”

“ Art and science are very beautiful things; but just because they are so beautiful they should not be spoiled by the compulsory combination with them of vice: that is to say, a man should not get rid of his obligation to serve his own life and that of other people by his own labor. Art and science have caused mankind to progress. Yes; but not because men of art and science, under the guise of division of labor, have rid themselves of the very first and most indisputable of human obligations,—to labor with their hands in the universal struggle of mankind with nature. ”

“ A man working at science, however dull and dirty his work may seem at times, is like one of those “chiffoniers,” as they call them in Paris—people who spend their lives in gathering rags and sifting refuse, but who may put their hands at any moment upon some precious jewel. And not only may you be able to help your neighbours to find out what will give them health and wealth: but you may, if you can only get them to listen to you, save them from many a foolish experiment, which ends in losing money just for want of science. ”

“ Law is a growth—it is a science. Right and wrong exist in the nature of things. Things are not right because they are commanded, nor wrong because they are prohibited. There are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. All progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing the laws of the ghosts.
The idea of right and wrong is born of man's capacity to enjoy and suffer. If man could not suffer, if he could not inflict injury upon his fellow, if he could neither feel nor inflict pain, the idea of right and wrong never would have entered his brain. ”

“ All great insight or genius in science is a passion of itself, a passion of worshipping real things. Science is a passion not only in its origin, but in its motive power and in its end. The real truth seems to be that the scientist of the greater sort is great, not by having no emotions, but by having disinterested emotions, by being large enough to have emotions on both sides and all sides, all held in subjection to the final emotion of truth. Having a disinterested, fair attitude in truth is not a matter of having no passions, but of having passions enough to go around. ”

“ IN the midst of the imperfect, perfection is reluctantly seen and acknowledged. Because Science is unimpeachable, it summons the severest conflicts of the ages and waits on God.
The faith and works demanded of man in our textbooks, the Bible and “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” and the proof of the practicality of this faith and these works, show conclusively that Christian Science is indeed Science, — the Science of Christ, the Science of God and man, of the creator and creation. ”

“ Virtue is the basis of civilization and progress; without it there is no true foundation to society, and it were utterly impossible to attain the Science of Life; but virtue should be recognized, and the fear to take responsible posts of duty, lest the vicious misjudge you, be wholly removed. Owing to the shocking depravity of mankind, chastity is looked at suspiciously; it requires more moral courage for woman to meet the low estimates in society of virtue, than to help lift its standard from the dust. ”

“ Man lives on such active life as his appetite craves, and as he separates the animal from the spiritual, his appetite or passions change till he is completely carried away by the spiritual life. . . .
Science teaches man that although he is not of this world he is a teacher in it, and being a teacher he is a soldier in the hands of Science. To fight the life of error like a soldier and contend for the truth or Science requires more courage than it does to fight for your own bread. ”

“ Nature is eternally young, beautiful, bountiful. She pours out beauty and poetry for all that live, she pours it out on all plants, and the plants are permitted to expand in it freely. She possesses the secret of happiness, and no man has been able to take it away from her. The happiest of men would be he who possessing the science of his labor and working with his hands, earning his comfort and his freedom by the exercise of his intelligent force, found time to live by the heart and by the brain, to understand his own work and to love the work of God. ”

“ In wisdom he of course is to be the great center of attraction, and although he has no light, only as it is thrown from the sun or higher power of his wisdom, woman thinks his light is derived from a power superior to himself. . . . But a female coming forward in public to advocate man's ideas is as much below the male as a male who personifies a brute for the gratification of an audience is below the brute itself. . . . Where is woman's true position? As a teacher of the Science of Health and Happiness. This is what man does not want to do. ”

“ Government and civil society are the most complicated of all subjects accessible to the human mind: and he who would deal competently with them as a thinker, and not as a blind follower of party, requires not only a general knowledge of the leading facts of life, both moral and material, but an understanding exercised and disciplined in the principles and rules of sound thinking, up to a point which neither the experience of life, nor any one science or branch of knowledge, affords. ”