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Science quotes

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“You can't learn a science unless you know what it's all about.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.” Isaac Asimov, “Foundation” - 1951

“It reaffirmed my long-held belief that education was the enemy of prejudice. These were men and women of science, and science had no room for racism.” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“On the other hand, I maintain that cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research.” Albert Einstein, “The world as I see it” - 1949

“Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.” Charles Darwin, “On The Origin of Species” - 1859

“The only immediate utility of all sciences, is to teach us, how to control and regulate future events by their causes.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“All the conditions of happiness are realised in the life of the man of science.” Bertrand Russell, “The Conquest of Happiness” - 1930

“But science is a self-correcting enterprise. To be accepted, all new ideas must survive rigorous standards of evidence.” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.” Henry Kissinger, “Diplomacy” - 1994

“Some people say that science clears up all the mysteries for us. In my opinion it only creates more!” Tennessee Williams, “The Glass Menagerie” - 1944

“Physical science is one and indivisible.” Thomas Henry Huxley, “The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century” - 1887

“It cannot be maintained that empirical science provides a complete explanation of life, the interplay of all creatures and the whole of reality.” Pope Francis, “Laudato si'” - 24 May 2015

“our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” Francis Bacon, “The Advancement of Learning” - 1605

“Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.” George Eliot, “Middlemarch” - 1872

“The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” Albert Einstein, “The world as I see it” - 1949

“How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it...” Albert Einstein, “The world as I see it” - 1949

“Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“They had not yet learned to draw the significant but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“It isn't only art that's incompatible with happiness; it's also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one.” Charles Darwin, “On The Origin of Species” - 1859

“In all cases positive palaeontological evidence may be implicitly trusted; negative evidence is worthless, as experience has so often shown.” Charles Darwin, “On The Origin of Species” - 1859

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstructions in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought so far to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much exposed to it.” Adam Smith, “The Wealth of Nations” - 1776

“As in other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the whole.” Aristotle, “Politics”

“Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.” Francis Bacon, “The Essays of Francis Bacon” - 1597

“Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society.” Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” - 1840

“We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost.” Barack Obama, “Inaugural Address” - 20 January 2009

“There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” Karl Marx, “Das Kapital” - 1867

“Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences.” Karl Marx, “Das Kapital” - 1867

“And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those...” René Descartes, “Discourse on the Method” - 1637

“Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth; it is like the golden cloud in which the Messiah went up into heaven.” Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo” - 1845

“Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than to adore.” A. W. Tozer, “The Pursuit of God” - 1948

“I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas. Without faith, there never could have evolved hypothesis, theory, science or mathematics. I believe that faith is an extension of the mind. It is the key that negates the impossible. To deny...” Charlie Chaplin, “My Autobiography” - 1964

“They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts.” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“It is remarkable, Hardin, how the religion of science has grabbed hold.” Isaac Asimov, “Foundation” - 1951

“With the destruction of our social fabric, science will be broken into a million pieces. Individuals will know much of exceedingly tiny facets of what there is to know.” Isaac Asimov, “Foundation” - 1951

“See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.” Galileo Galilei, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” - 1632

“They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.” Galileo Galilei, “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany” - 1615

“The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.” William James, “The Varieties of Religious Experience” - 1902

“He was one of that class of men who, apart from a scientific career in which they may well have proved brilliantly successful, have acquired an entirely different kind of culture, literary or artistic, of which they make no use in the specialised...” Marcel Proust, “Swann's Way” - 1913

“Is it not time to cry that the blind shall see, the deaf hear, the lame walk? But that which fanaticism formerly promised to its elect, science now accomplishes for all men.” Gustave Flaubert, “Madame Bovary” - 1856

Related topics

art truth knowledge religion God happiness experience learning universe wisdom life mind future philosophy logic question history progress explanation evidence

Related authors

Stephen Hawking (5)
Thomas Henry Huxley (5)
Aldous Huxley (4)
David Hume (4)
Albert Einstein (3)
Charles Darwin (3)
Carl Sagan (3)
Isaac Asimov (3)
Francis Bacon (2)
Karl Marx (2)
Galileo Galilei (2)
George Orwell (1)
George Eliot (1)
Nelson Mandela (1)
H. G. Wells (1)
Bertrand Russell (1)
Adam Smith (1)
Aristotle (1)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1)
Barack Obama (1)

Related sources

A Brief History of Time (5)
The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (5)
Brave New World (4)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (4)
The world as I see it (3)
On The Origin of Species (3)
Foundation (3)
Inaugural Address (2)
Das Kapital (2)
Cosmos (2)
1984 (1)
Middlemarch (1)
Long Walk to Freedom (1)
The Time Machine (1)
The Conquest of Happiness (1)
The Wealth of Nations (1)
Politics (1)
The Essays of Francis Bacon (1)
Democracy in America (1)
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1)