Quotes about science

„Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly.“

—  Vladimir Lenin Russian politician, led the October Revolution 1870 - 1924

Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition

„Logic is the science not of external forms of thought, but of the laws of development "of all material, natural and spiritual things", i. e., of the development of the entire concrete content of the world and of its cognition, i. e., the sum-total, the conclusion of the History of knowledge of the world.“

—  Vladimir Lenin Russian politician, led the October Revolution 1870 - 1924

„Science treads in the same footsteps of our ancestors, answering to our longing to understand where we fit in as we look up to the sky.“

—  Marcelo Gleiser Brazilian physicist 1959

Source: https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2016/03/quoted-marcelo-gleiser-stories-about-universe

„Any opposition not based on rationalism or science or experience will one day or other, reveal the fraud, selfishness, lies and conspiracies.“

—  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Tamil politician and social reformer 1879 - 1973

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 504.
Rationalism

„The dreary alternative of agnosticism, which the young students are taught to accept as the final word of science on the grave mysteries of life and thought, and man’s hopes of personal communion with God are laughed away to make room for an inane faith in evolution and the law of collective development and progress…. Hindu students especially need the strengthening influence which faith in God, and in Conscience as His voice in the human heart alone, can give. The national mind can not live in agnosticism. The experiment was tried once on a large scale by the greatest moral teacher of this or any other age. The failure of Buddhism is a warning that such teaching can have no hold on the national thought.“

—  Mahadev Govind Ranade Indian scholar, social reformer and author 1842 - 1901

Religion had important place in his life is indicated in his admonishing Professor Selby (also a professor in the Deccan College) notes on a published ”Notes of Lectures on Butelr’s Anaology and Sermons" quoted in pages=105-106

„A civilization which is dominated by this matter-of-fact insight must prevail against any cultural scheme that lacks this element. This characteristic of western civilization comes to a head in modern science, and finds its highest material expression in the technology of the machine industry.“

—  Thorstein Veblen American academic 1857 - 1929

Source: "The Place of Science in Modern Civilization", 1906, p. 355

„She seemed able to face with equal equanimity the rigours of fascist cruelty and suppression that she was dealt as a Jew; the problems of practising underground medicine in wartime; the difficulties posed by prejudice and discrimination against women; and the near isolation and challenges of those working at the cutting edge of science.“

—  Rita Levi-Montalcini Italian neurologist 1909 - 2012

Obituary in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/30/rita-levi-montalcini
About

„Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.“

—  Robert Oppenheimer American theoretical physicist and professor of physics 1904 - 1967

Last published words With Oppenheimer on an Autumn Day, Look, Vol. 30, No. 26 (19 December 1966)

„He is the master who, after reaching the furthest shores and plumbing the inmost depths of the sea of ultimate knowledge of mathematics, kinematics and spherics, handed over the three sciences to the learned world.“

—  Aryabhata Indian mathematician-astronomer 476 - 550

Bhaskara I, quoted in: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson "Aryabhata the Elder".

„Panini’s grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written. It was the discovery of Sanskrit by the West, at the end of the 18th century, and the study of Indian methods of analyzing language that revolutionized our study of language and grammar, and gave rise to our science of comparative philology … The study of language in India was much more objective and scientific than in Greece or Rome. The interest was in empirical investigation of language, rather than philosophical and syntactical. Indian study of language was as objective as the dissection of a body by an anatomist.“

—  Pāṇini ancient Sanskrit grammarian

—Walter Eugene Clark ,.Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

„If all men by nature desire to know, then they desire most of all the greatest knowledge of science. So the Philosopher argues in chap. 2 of his first book of the work [Metaphisics]. And he immediately indicates what the greatest science is, namely the science which is about those things that are most knowable. But there are two senses in which things are said to be maximally knowable: either [1] because they are the first of all things known and without them nothing else can be known; or [2] because they are what are known most certainly. In either way, however, this science is about the most knowable. Therefore, this most of all is a science and, consequently, most desirable…“

—  Duns Scotus Scottish Franciscan friar, philosopher and Catholic blessed 1265 - 1308

sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia".
Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis.
Quaestiones subtilissimae de metaphysicam Aristotelis, as translated in: William A. Frank, Allan Bernard Wolter (1995) Duns Scotus, metaphysician. p. 18-19
Original: (la) sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia". Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis.

„I am a sincere Catholic as it were Corneille, Racine, La Bruyère, Bossnet, Bourdaloue, Fènelon, as were and still are so many of the most of the honor of out science, philosophy and literature, and have conferred such brilliant ustre on our Academies. I share the deep conviction openly manifested in words, deeds and writings by so many savants of the first rank, by a Ruffini, a Haüy, a Laënnec, an Ampere, a Pelletier, a Freycinet, a Coriolis and I avoid naming any of those living, for fear of paining their podesty. I may at least be allowed to say that I loved to recognize all the noble generosity of the Christian Faith in my illustrious friends the creator of Crystallography (Haüy), the introducers of quinine and stethoscope (Pelletier and Laënnec), the famous voyager on board of the 'Urania', and the immortal founders of the theory of Dynamic Electricity“

—  Augustin Louis Cauchy French mathematician (1789–1857) 1789 - 1857

Frencinet and Ampère

„I wonder why some people tend to see science as something which takes man away from God. As I look at it, the path of science can always wind through the heart. For me, science has always been the path to spiritual enrichment and self-realisation.“

—  A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 15.

„The science of Chaos teaches us that everything is interconnected, but the contemporary developments in neuroscience, getting started with the brain neurons and their multiple connections, reveal the topology of the brain, a miniature of the universal geometry of everything.“

—  Alexis Karpouzos 1967

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

„The spiritual experience of oneness conduces to the same insight as reasoning through science. Both convey the insight of fundamental interconnection between ourselves, other people, other forms of life, the biosphere and, ultimately, the universe. Science and spirituality, far from being mutually exclusive and conflicting elements, are complementary partners in the search for the path that can enable humanity to recover its oneness with the world. Science demonstrates the urgent and objective need for it; and spirituality testifies to its inherent value and supreme desirability.“

—  Alexis Karpouzos 1967

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

„There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other.“

—  Noam Chomsky american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow.

„If you take an economics or a political science course, you're taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators“

—  Noam Chomsky american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

Interview by Yifat Susskind, August 2001 http://www.madre.org/articles/chomsky-0801.html.
Quotes 2000s, 2001
Context: Take the Kyoto Protocol. Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it's exactly what you're taught to do in college. If you take an economics or a political science course, you're taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market. The market is regarded as democratic because everybody has a vote. Of course, some have more votes than others because your votes depend on the number of dollars you have, but everybody participates and therefore it's called democratic. Well, suppose that we believe what we are taught. It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational, because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy. If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.

„The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically, there is nothing in the world that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing.“

—  Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian spiritual philosopher 1895 - 1986

Bombay, Second Public Talk (25 February 1962)
1960s
Context: The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically, there is nothing in the world that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing. That is a scientific fact, as well as a psychological fact. Because, your leaders — religious and political — and your books — sacred and profane — have all failed, and you are still confused, in misery, in conflict. So, that is an absolute, undeniable fact.

„To those who think that all this sounds like science fiction, we point out that yesterday's science fiction is today's fact. The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man's environment and way of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been.“

—  Theodore Kaczynski, book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Control of Human Behavior", item 160
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)