“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer
Source: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers
Quotes about science
A collection of quotes on the topic of science, use, other, human.
Best quotes about science
“We need a science to save us from science.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
NY Times Magazine, as reported in High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. 34 (1952), p. 46
1950s
“To understand a science it is necessary to know its history.”
Auguste Comte (1798–1857) French philosopher
A Course of Positive Philosophy (1832 - 1842) [Six volumes]
“I am among those who think that science has great beauty.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
As quoted in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 341
Variant translation: A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.
Context: I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery also has its beauty.
Neither do I believe that the spirit of adventure runs any risk of disappearing in our world. If I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity.
“Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.”
Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics
Last published words With Oppenheimer on an Autumn Day, Look, Vol. 30, No. 26 (19 December 1966)
“There is no conflict between science and religion.”
Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) Belgian scientist and priest
New York Times, February 19, 1933 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A02E7DA1539E033A2575AC1A9649C946294D6CF&nytmobile=0&legacy=true
“Experience by itself is not science.”
Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology
... bloße Erfahrung ist keine Wissenschaft.
Pure Phenomenology, 1917
Quotes about science
Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist
“Der erste Trunk aus dem Becher der Naturwissenschaft macht atheistisch, aber auf dem Grund des Bechers wartet Gott.” in 15 Jahrhunderte Würzburg: e. Stadt u. ihre Geschichte [15 centuries Würzburg. A city and its history] (1979), p. 205, by Heinz Otremba. Otremba does not declare his source, and the quote per se cannot be found in Heisenberg's published works.
The journalist Eike Christian Hirsch PhD, a personal acquaintance of Heisenberg, whom he interviewed for his 1981 book Expedition in die Glaubenswelt, claimed in de.wikiquote.org on 22 June 2015, that the content and style of the quote was completely foreign to Heisenberg's convictions and the way he used to express himself, and that Heisenberg's children, Dr. Maria Hirsch and Prof. Dr. Martin Heisenberg, did not recognize their father in this quote.
Statements similar to the quote were made by Francis Bacon, in "Of Atheism" (1601): "A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion", and Alexander Pope, in "An Essay on Criticism" (1709): "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
There is a passage in a lengthy essay written by Heisenberg in 1942, "Ordnung der Wirklichkeit” ("Reality and Its Order"), published in Collected Works. Section C: Philosophical and Popular Writings. Volume I. Physics and Cognition. 1927-1955 (1984), that parallels the ideas expressed in the quote (albeit in a much expanded form):
"The first thing we could say was simply: 'I believe in God, the Father, the almighty creator of heaven and earth.' The next step — at least for our contemporary consciousness — was doubt. There is no god; there is only an impersonal law that directs the fate of the world according to cause and effect... And yet [today], we may with full confidence place ourselves into the hands of the higher power who, during our lifetime and in the course of the centuries, determines our faith and therewith our world and our fate." (English translation by M.B.Rumscheidt and N. Lukens, available at http://www.heisenbergfamily.org/t-OdW-english.htm)
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, a protégé of Heisenberg, did publish a version of the quote itself in Die Geschichte der Natur (The History of Nature) (1948), appearing to consider it an adage:
"Aus dem Denken gibt es keinen ehrlichen Rückweg in einen naiven Glauben. Nach einem alten Satz trennt uns der erste Schluck aus dem Becher der Erkenntnis von Gott, aber auf dem Grunde des Bechers wartet Gott auf den, der ihn sucht. Wenn es so ist, dann gibt es einen Weg des Denkens, der vorwärts zu religiösen Wahrheiten führt, und nur diesen Weg zu suchen ist lohnend. Wenn es nicht so ist, wird unsere Welt auf die Religion ihre Hoffnungen vergeblich setzen." ("From thinking there is no honest way back into a naive belief. According to an old phrase, the first sip from the cup of knowledge separates us from God, but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting for the one who seeks him. If so, then there is a way of thinking that leads to religious truths, and to seek only that way is rewarding. If it is not so, our world will put its hopes to religion in vain.")
Misattributed
“Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.”
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist
Introduction.
Source: Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.
(Illustration: It is my Will to inform the World of certain facts within my knowledge. I therefore take "magical weapons", pen, ink, and paper; I write "incantations" — these sentences — in the "magical language" ie, that which is understood by the people I wish to instruct; I call forth "spirits", such as printers, publishers, booksellers and so forth and constrain them to convey my message to those people. The composition and distribution of this book is thus an act of Magick by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity with my Will.)
In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to Science by the vulgar.
Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher
"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html <br class="br">Context: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 94
Context: Religion and science go together. As I've said before, science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. They are interdependent and have a common goal—the search for truth. Hence it is absurd for religion to proscribe Galileo or Darwin or other scientists. And it is equally absurd when scientists say that there is no God. The real scientist has faith, which does not mean that he must subscribe to a creed. Without religion there is no charity. The soul given to each of us is moved by the same living spirit that moves the universe.
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
Lecture at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York (14 May 1921)
Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist
Variants:
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature, for in the final analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
Source: Where is Science Going? (1932)
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer
Author, Third Day. Change of Position<!--p.153 [190]-->
Dialogues and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)
Context: It has been observed that missiles and projectiles describe a curved path of some sort; however no one has pointed out the fact that this path is a parabola. But this and other facts, not few in number or less worth knowing, I have succeeded in proving; and what I consider more important, there have been opened up to this vast and most excellent science, of which my work is merely the beginning, ways and means by which other minds more acute than mine will explore its remote corners.
Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer
Bhaskara I, quoted in: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson "Aryabhata the Elder".
“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.”
Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) British chemist, biophysicist, and X-ray crystallographer
in answer to her father, who accused her of making science her religion, as related by [Brenda Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Perennial, 2003, 0060985089, 61]
Roger Bacon book Opus Majus
cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world. p. 1
Opus Majus, c. 1267
James Clerk Maxwell book A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), Preface, p. xiii.
Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics
As quoted in "J. Robert Oppenheimer" by L. Barnett, in Life, Vol. 7, No. 9, International Edition (24 October 1949), p. 58; sometimes a partial version (the final sentence) is misattributed to Marcel Proust.
Context: There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry … There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.
Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist
We Are Striking to Disrupt the System: An Hour with 16-Year-Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/11/greta_thunberg_swedish_activist_climate_crisis, DemocracyNow (11 September 2019) <br class="br">2019
“Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.”
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)
Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist
Source: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
R.U.R. (1920)
Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer
?
Books, The Beggar, Volume IV: Die Before Dying (Hari-Nama Press, 2005)
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806) French physicist
as quoted by [C. Stewart Gillmor, Coulomb and the Evolution of Physics and Engineering in Eighteenth-century France, Princeton University Press, 1971, 069108095X, 255-261]
Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer
As quoted in NPR obituary http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/26/507022497/vera-rubin-who-confirmed-existence-of-dark-matter-dies-at-88
Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician
Conclusion in Wonders of the Universe - Destiny
Jürgen Habermas book Knowledge and Human Interests
Source: Knowledge and Human Interests, 1971, p. 310 as cited in: Dominick LaCapra (1983) Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language. p. 170
“Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.”
Karl Popper book Conjectures and Refutations
Source: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), Ch. 1 "Science : Conjectures and Refutations", Section VII
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters
Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist
Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], a 1944 speech in Florence, Italy, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max&#8209; Planck&#8209; Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797; the German original is as quoted in The Spontaneous Healing of Belief https://archive.org/stream/GreggBradenTheSpontaneousHealingOfBelief/Gregg%20Braden/Gregg%20Braden%20-%20The%20Spontaneous%20Healing%20Of%20Belief#page/n1 (2008) by Gregg Braden, p. 212; Braden mistranslates intelligenten Geist as "intelligent Mind", which is an obvious tautology.
Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia
Interview in The Voice of Ethiopia (5 April 1948).
Context: The progress of science can be said to be harmful to religion only in so far as it is used for evil aims and not because it claims a priority over religion in its revelation to man. It is important that spiritual advancement must keep pace with material advancement. When this comes to be realized man's journey toward higher and more lasting values will show more marked progress while the evil in him recedes into the background. Knowing that material and spiritual progress are essential to man, we must ceaselessly work for the equal attainment of both. Only then shall we be able to acquire that absolute inner calm so necessary to our well-being.
It is only when a people strike an even balance between scientific progress and spiritual and moral advancement that it can be said to possess a wholly perfect and complete personality and not a lopsided one.
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
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.
Alexis Karpouzos (1967)
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2
Alexis Karpouzos (1967)
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2
Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) American philosopher
Source: The New Science of Politics: An Introduction
Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time
Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 12
Context: Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? 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. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
“You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.”
L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology
Response to a question from the audience during a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association on (7 November 1948), as quoted in a 1994 affidavit by Sam Moskowitz. <br class="br">This statement is similar or identical to several statements http://www.bible.ca/scientology-1million-start-a-religion.htm Hubbard is reported to have made to various individuals or groups in the 1940s. Variants include: <br class="br">The incident is stamped indelibly in my mind because of one statement that Ron Hubbard made. What led him to say what he did I can't recall — but in so many words Hubbard said: "I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is!" <br class="br">L. Ron Hubbard to Lloyd A. Eshbach, in 1949; as quoted by Eshbach in his autobiography Over My Shoulder: Reflections On A Science Fiction Era (1983) ISBN 1-880418-11-8 . <br class="br">Y'know, we're all wasting our time writing this hack science fiction! You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion! <br class="br">As reported to Mike Jittlov by Theodore Sturgeon as a statement Hubbard made while at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society clubhouse in the 1940s. <br class="br">Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion. <br class="br">As quoted in the Los Angeles Times (27 August 1978) <br class="br">Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion. <br class="br">As quoted in the article "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult" by Eugene H. Methvin. Reader's Digest (May 1980). <br class="br">I always knew he was exceedingly anxious to hit big money — he used to say he thought the best way to do it would be to start a cult. <br class="br">Sam Merwin, Editor of Thrilling Science Fiction magazine Winter of 1946-47; quoted in Bare-Faced Messiah, The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (1987) by Russell Miller <br class="br">Whenever he was talking about being hard up he often used to say that he thought the easiest way to make money would be to start a religion. <br class="br">Neison Himmel, briefly a roommate of Hubbard in Pasadena during the fall of 1945, in a 1986 interview, quoted in Bare-Faced Messiah, The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (1987) by Russell Miller.
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
“To begin with, we put the proposition: pure phenomenology is the science of pure consciousness.”
Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
Fahre fort, übe nicht allein die Kunst, sondern dringe auch in ihr Inneres; sie verdient es, denn nur die Kunst und die Wissenschaft erhöhen den Menschen bis zur Gottheit.
Letter to Emilie, July 17, 1812.
Quoted in Musical news, Vol. 3 (1892), p. 627
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition
Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer
Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
“I don't believe in empirical science. I only believe in a priori truth.”
Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics
Christine de Pizan book The Book of the City of Ladies
Si la coustume estoit de mettre les petites filles a l'escole, et que communement on les fist apprendre les sciences comme on fait aux filz, qu'elles apprendroient aussi parfaitement et entenderoient les subtilités de toutes les arz et sciences comme ils font.
Part I, ch. 27, p. 63.
Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (c. 1405)
Source: The Book of the City of Ladies
“Fortunate those who, born before science, were privileged to die of their first disease!”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
G. H. Hardy (1877–1947) British mathematician
"The Theory of Numbers," Nature (Sep 16, 1922) Vol. 110 https://books.google.com/books?id=1bMzAQAAMAAJ p. 381
William Thomson (1824–1907) British physicist and engineer
Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883), published in Popular Lectures Vol. I, p. 73, as quoted in The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910) by Silvanus Phillips Thompson
Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II
Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. x.
Otto Neurath (1882–1945) austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist
Otto Neurath (1934:102), as cited in: Cartwright (2008;199)
1930s
Raymond Aron (1905–1983) French philosopher, sociologist, journalist, and political scientist
The Opium of Intellectuals (1955), Conclusion: The End of the Ideological Age?
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist
Experimental Researches in Electricity, Vol. 2 (1834) p. 257 http://books.google.com/books?id=XuITAAAAQAAJ&vq=257&pg=PA257
James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer
Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You
Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer
Source: The Age of Revolution (1962), Chapter 15, Science
Daniel Katz (1903–1998) American psychologist
18
The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966)
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist
True Hallucinations http://www.matrixmasters.com/takecharge/consciousness/mckenna2.html (1993)
“[Science] was a human heritage] belonging neither to the East or the West.”
Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist
In page=107
Science and National Consciousness in Bengal: 1870-1930
“Science is competitive, aggressive, demanding. It is also imaginative, inspiring, uplifting.”
Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer
Bright Galaxies, Dark Matters (1997), p. 219
Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher
Source: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990), p. 163
Évariste Galois (1811–1832) French mathematician, founder of group theory
Of mathematics — as quoted in Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty (1980) by Morris Kline, p. 99.
“Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts.”
Jean Rostand (1894–1977) French writer
[Jean Rostand, The substance of men, Doubleday, 1962, 19]
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)
Source: The Division of Labor in Society (1893), p. 40
Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States
Testimony before Congress (21 March 2007), as quoted in "Gore Implores Congress To Save The Planet" at CBS Evening News (21 March 2007) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/21/politics/main2591104.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2591104
George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician
Source: 1850s, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), p. 12; Cited in: William Stanley Jevons (1887) The Principles of Science: : A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method. p. 155
“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…”
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.
Duns Scotus (1265–1308) Scottish Franciscan friar, philosopher and Catholic blessed
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
Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist
Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path. A Philosophy of Freedom (GA 4), Hudson (1894)/1995.
Norbert Wiener book The Human Use of Human Beings
XI. Language, Confusion, and Jam. p. 193
The Human Use of Human Beings (1950)
Eugene Cernan (1934–2017) United States Navy officer and former NASA astronaut
In the Shadow of the Moon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Moon
Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Preface, translation in William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences http://books.google.com/books?id=vlQEAAAAQAAJ (1837) <br class="br">Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) Italian mathematician and mathematical physicist
Dans Les Leçons Élémentaires sur les Mathématiques (1795) Leçon cinquiéme, Tr. McCormack, cited in Moritz, Memorabilia mathematica or, The philomath's quotation-book (1914) Ch. 15 Arithmetic, p. 261. https://archive.org/stream/memorabiliamathe00moriiala#page/260/mode/2up
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 14
John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal
Tract 83 http://anglicanhistory.org/tracts/tract83.html (29 June 1838).
“To prepare teachers in the method of the experimental sciences is not an easy matter.”
Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician
Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 1 : A Critical Consideration of the New Pedagogy in its Relation to Modern Science, p. 7.
Context: To prepare teachers in the method of the experimental sciences is not an easy matter. When we shall have instructed them in anthropometry and psychometry in the most minute manner possible, we shall have only created machines, whose usefulness will be most doubtful. Indeed, if it is after this fashion that we are to initiate our teachers into experiment, we shall remain forever in the field of theory. The teachers of the old school, prepared according to the principles of metaphysical philosophy, understood the ideas of certain men regarded as authorities, and moved the muscles of speech in talking of them, and the muscles of the eye in reading their theories. Our scientific teachers, instead, are familiar with certain instruments and know how to move the muscles of the hand and arm in order to use these instruments; besides this, they have an intellectual preparation which consists of a series of typical tests, which they have, in a barren and mechanical way, learned how to apply.
The difference is not substantial, for profound differences cannot exist in exterior technique alone, but lie rather within the inner man. Not with all our initiation into scientific experiment have we prepared new masters, for, after all, we have left them standing without the door of real experimental science; we have not admitted them to the noblest and most profound phase of such study, — to that experience which makes real scientists.
“The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.”
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher
Moralités (1932)
Context: Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.
“Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.”
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer
Untimely Thoughts (1917-18) (original: Наиболее успешно и могуче будит в нашей душе ее добрые начала сила искусства. Как наука является разумом мира, так искусство — сердце его.)
Context: The good qualities in our soul are most successfully and forcefully awakened by the power of art. Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.
Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994, Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, 1992
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.
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker
The Great Dictator (1940), The Barber's speech
Context: I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness — not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another.
In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world — millions of despairing men, women and little children — victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say — do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed — the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes — men who despise you — enslave you — who regiment your lives — tell you what to do — what to think or what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men — machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate! Only the unloved hate — the unloved and the unnatural!
Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the 17th Chapter of St. Luke it is written: "the Kingdom of God is within man" — not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power — the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!
[Cheers]
Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. The clouds are lifting. The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality. Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow — into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up.
Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary
Notes on the Cuban Revolution (1960)
Context: The Cuban Revolution takes up Marx at the point where he himself left science to shoulder his revolutionary rifle. And it takes him up at that point, not in a revisionist spirit, of struggling against that which follows Marx, of reviving "pure" Marx, but simply because up to that point Marx, the scientist, placed himself outside of the history he studied and predicted. From then on Marx, the revolutionary, could fight within history.
Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect
From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)
Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist
Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Context: [I]n the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory we can indeed proceed without mentioning ourselves as individuals, but we cannot disregard the fact that natural science is formed by men. Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves; it describes nature as exposed to our nature of questioning. This was a possibility of which Descartes could not have thought, but it makes a sharp separation between the world and the I impossible.
If one follows the great difficulty which even eminent scientists like Einstein had in understanding and accepting the Copenhagen interpretation... one can trace the roots... to the Cartesian partition.... it will take a long time for it [this partition] to be replaced by a really different attitude toward the problem of reality. <!--p. 81
Linus Pauling (1901–1994) American scientist
Lecture at Yale University, "Chemical Achievement and Hope for the Future." (October 1947) Published in Science in Progress. Sixth Series. Ed. George A. Baitsell. 100-21, (1949).
1940s-1960s
Context: Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences – and we cannot predict what they will be. Science will go on — whether we are pessimistic, or are optimistic, as I am. I know that great, interesting, and valuable discoveries can be made and will be made… But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist
The Value of Science (1955)
Context: The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question — to doubt — to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist
As quoted in Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1960) by René Jules Dubos, Ch. 3 : Pasteur in Action
Quoted by Daniel crockett
Source: [Crockett, Daniel, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniel-crockett/nature-connection-will-be-the-next-big-human-trend_b_5698267.html/Nature, Connection Will Be the Next Big Human Trend, Huffington Post, Aug 22, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20160105052014/http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniel-crockett/nature-connection-will-be-the-next-big-human-trend_b_5698267.html, January 5, 2016, yes]
Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
With the observable fact that scientific knowledge makes our lives better when applied with concern for human welfare and environmental protection, there is no question that science and technology can produce abundance so that no one has to go without... Hopes for divine intervention by mythical characters are delusions that cannot solve the problems of our modern world. The future of the world is our responsibility and it depends upon decisions we make today. We are our own salvation or damnation.
Source: Designing the Future (2007), p. 10
“Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.”
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917–2007) American historian, social critic, and public intellectual
“It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.”
Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) French mathematician, physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science