“The theory of the tides has been reduced into an extremely simple form, which appears to agree better with all the phenomena, than the more intricate calculations which they have commonly been supposed to require.”

—  Thomas Young (scientist)

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

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Thomas Young (scientist) 28
English polymath 1773–1829

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“The passive strength of materials of all kinds has been very fully investigated, and many new conclusions have been formed respecting it, which are of immediate importance to the architect and to the engineer, and which appear to contradict the results of some very elaborate calculations.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
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“For lack of empirical data I have neither knowledge nor understanding of such forms of being, which are commonly called spiritual. …Nevertheless, we have good reason to suppose that behind this veil there exists the uncomprehended absolute object which affects and influences us—and to suppose it even, or particularly, in the case of psychic phenomena about which no verifiable statements can be made.”

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Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), pp.351 f.

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“Classical mechanics has been developed continuously from the time of Newton and applied to an ever-widening range of dynamical systems, including the electromagnetic field in interaction with matter. The underlying ideas and the laws governing their application form a simple and elegant scheme, which one would be inclined to think could not be seriously modified without having all its attractive features spout. Nevertheless it has been found possible to set up a new scheme, called quantum mechanics, which is more suitable for the description of phenomena on the atomic scale and which is in some respects more elegant and satisfying than the classical scheme. This possibility is due to the changes which the new scheme involves being of a very profound character and not clashing with the features of the classical theory that make it so attractive, as a result of which all these features can be incorporated in the new scheme.”

Paul Dirac book Principles of Quantum Mechanics

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“Progress in modifying our concept of control has been and will be comparatively slow. In the first place, it requires the application of certain modern physical concepts; and in the second place it requires the application of statistical methods which up to the present time have been for the most part left undisturbed in the journal in which they appeared.”

Walter A. Shewhart (1891–1967) American statistician

Source: Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product,1931, p. 4-5

“The kind of lecture which I have been so kindly invited to give, and which now appears in book form, gives one a rare opportunity to allow the bees in one's bonnet to buzz even more noisily than usual.”

Hermann Bondi (1919–2005) British mathematician and cosmologist

Hermann Bondi, Assumption and Myth in Physical Theory, (1967) p. v

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György Lukács book History and Class Consciousness

Source: History and Class Consciousness (1968), p. 14

“Nietzsche's views have always seemed so strikingly different from the background of opinion against which he grew up that they have often been thought to owe their origin to a violent reaction against his upbringing. His entire philosophy even has been seen as no more than a calculated antithesis to the tradition in which he was raised.”

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“Comets, earthquakes, volcanoes, and northern lights (in the night,) with many other extraordinary phenomena or appearances intimidate weak minds, and are by them thought to be miraculous, although they undoubtedly have their proper natural causes, which have been in a great measure discovered. Jack-with-a-lantern is a frightful appearance to some people, but not so much as the imaginary specter. But of all the scarecrows which have made human nature tremble, the devil has been chief; his family is said to be very numerous, consisting of "legions," with which he has kept our world in a terrible uproar.”

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Leonard Susskind book The Cosmic Landscape

[The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, 2008, Little, Brown, https://books.google.com/books?id=RIW9E1sOyxUC&q=epitome#v=snippet&q=epitome&f=false]

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