“The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.”

— Erwin Schrödinger

Source: What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists." by Erwin Schrödinger?

Erwin Schrödinger 67

Austrian physicist 1887–1961

Related quotes

“They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12: Apology for Raimond Sebond
Essais (1595), Book II
Context: Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begotten, by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute: we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. The style at Rome was that even that which a witness deposed to having seen with his own eyes, and what a judge determined with his most certain knowledge, was couched in this form of speaking: “it seems to me.” They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.

“But reason was only a created thing, imposed with faith upon the world, and the stars promise nothing to no one.”

Anne Rice book Pandora

Pandora (1998)

“The attempt to discover and promulgate the truth is nevertheless an obligation upon all scientists, one that must be persevered in no matter what the rebuffs—for otherwise what is the point in being a scientist?”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

(with Jean Medawar) Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology, 1983
1980s

“We don't want support for scientific research just to keep scientists busy: we want scientists to be looked upon by the public as people who can do things for them that they can't do themselves.”

John Cunningham McLennan (1867–1935) Canadian physicist

as quoted by Gordon Shrum. In an article by Robert Craig Brown, The life of Sir John Cunningham McLennan http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/overview/history/mclennan, Physics in Canada, March / April 2000.

“How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every citizen, in his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, to exert himself in perpetuating a condition of things so singularly happy.”

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) American politician, 8th President of the United States (in office from 1837 to 1841)

Inaugural address (1837)

“There are two kinds of morality—the kind of morality that one imposes on oneself and the kind of morality that one imposes on others.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

For the first kind of morality, that is, for self-restraint, I have the greatest respect. The second kind of morality I do not respect except when it constitutes self-defense. (For example, when women say that rape and wife-beating are immoral, that is self-defense.) I have noticed that the people who try hardest to impose moral code on others (not in self-defense) are often the least careful to abide by that moral code themselves.
"Morality and Revolution"
The Road to Revolution (2008)

“It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), ch. 26 "Street Nuisances"
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

“Chair-philosophy is burdened with the disadvantage which philosophy as a profession imposes on philosophy as the free investigation of truth, or which philosophy by government order imposes on philosophy in the name of nature and mankind.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Ueberhaupt aber bin ich allmälig der Meinung geworden, daß der erwähnte Nutzen der Kathederphilosophie von dem Nachtheil überwogen werde, den die Philosophie als Profession der Philosophie als freier Wahrheitsforschung, oder die Philosophie im Auftrage der Regierung der Philosophie im Auftrage der Natur und der Menschheit bringt.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 151, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 139
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

“The title of Realist was thrust upon me just as the title of Romantic was imposed upon the men of 1830. Titles have never given a true idea of things: if it were otherwise, the works would be unnecessary.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

1840s - 1850s, Realist Manifesto', 1851/1855

“Two polar groups: at one pole we have the literary intellectuals, at the other scientists, and as the most representative, the physical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension.”

C. P. Snow book The Two Cultures

Source: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959), P. 4

“The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Erwin Schrödinger 67

Related quotes

Related topics