Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Quotes about science

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey. Explore interesting quotes on science.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: 76 quotes46 likes

“In human life, you will find players of religion until the knowledge and proficiency in religion will be cleansed from all superstitions, and will be purified and perfected by the enlightenment of real science.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Speech (October 1927); quoted in Atatürk’ten Düşünceler by E. Z. Karal, p. 59

“My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Quoted in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey, by Andrew Mango; "In a book published in 1928, Grace Ellison quotes [Atatürk], presumably in 1926-27", Grace Ellison Turkey Today (London: Hutchinson, 1928)
Context: I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.

“Science is the most real guide for civilisation, for life, for success in the world. To search for a guide other than science is absurdity, ignorance and heresy.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

As quoted in Atatürkçülük, Volume I, General Staff of the Republic of Turkey, Millî Eğitim Basımevi, 1984, p. 283

“The torch that the Turkish nation holds in her hand and in her mind, while marching on the road of progress and civilisation, is positive sciences.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Speech on the tenth anniversary of the Republic, 1933 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk%27s_Tenth_Year_Speech

“I do not leave any verses, dogmas, nor any moulded standard principles as moral heritage. My moral heritage is science and reason. What I have done and intended to do for the Turkish nation lies in that. Anyone willing to appropriate my ideas for themselves after me will be my moral inheritors provided they would approve the guidance of science and reason on this axis.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

As quoted in Kemalist Devrim ve İdeolojisi (1980) by İsmet Giritli, İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları, p. 13