Quotes about science

A collection of quotes on the topic of science.

„Human behavior is predictable, but, as in physical science, accurate prediction hinges on the correctness of underlying theoretical assumptions. There is, in fact, no prediction without theory; all managerial decisions and actions rest on assumptions about behavior. If we adopt the posture of the ostrich with respect to our assumptions under the mistaken idea that we are thus “being ‘practical,” or that “management is an art,” our progress with respect to the human side of enterprise will indeed be slow. Only as we examine and test our theoretical assumptions can we hope to make them more adequate, to remove inconsistencies, and thus to improve our ability to predict.“

— Douglas McGregor American professor 1906 - 1964
The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 11 (2006; 13)

„As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together…. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Spirit. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.“

— Max Planck German theoretical physicist 1858 - 1947
Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], a 1944 speech in Florence, Italy, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max‑ Planck‑ 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.

Study, Intelligence, Life

„There is no conflict between science and religion.“

— Georges Lemaître Belgian scientist and priest 1894 - 1966
New York Times, February 19, 1933 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A02E7DA1539E033A2575AC1A9649C946294D6CF&nytmobile=0&legacy=true

Religion

„Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts.“

— Jean Rostand French writer 1894 - 1977
[Jean Rostand, The substance of men, Doubleday, 1962, 19]

Men

„Calculations are to the economic science what bones are to the human body. Without them it will always be a vague and confused science, at the mercy of error and prejudice.“

— François Quesnay French economist 1694 - 1774
François Quesnay in letter to Mirabeau (Archives Nationales, Ms. 779, 4 bis, p.2 note); as cited in: Richard Van Den Berg and Albert Steenge. "Tableaux and Systèmes. Early French Contributions to Linear Production Models." Cahiers d'économie Politique/Papers in Political Economy 2 (2016): 11-30.

Error

„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.“

— Avicenna medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher 980 - 1037
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. "On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html

Study, Knowledge

„Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.“

— Maxim Gorky Russian and Soviet writer 1868 - 1936
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. 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.)

Soul, Art, World

„In olden times gold was manufactured by science; nowadays science must be renewed by gold. We have fixed the volatile and we must now volatilize the fixed—in other words, we have materialized spirit, and we must now spiritualize matter.“

— Eliphas Levi, Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual

Time

„The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.“

— Thomas Henry Huxley, Collected Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley
1860s, Context: The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates hold them; not because their verity is testified by portents and wonders; but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, Nature — whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and to observation — Nature will confirm them. The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification. On the advisableness of improving natural knowledge (1866) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/thx1410.txt

Learning, Faith

„Of course, science lives by confusing theories, but what were accepted as 'theories' even by the many professional psychologists and psychiatrists were very poor limitations of what physical scientists call a theory.“

— Raymond Cattell British-American psychologist 1905 - 1998
The Scientific Analysis of Personality, 1965, p. 16 (1966 edition)

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„If you search the scientific literature on evolution, and if you focus your search on the question of how molecular machines—the basis of life—developed, you find an eerie and complete silence. The complexity of life’s foundation has paralyzed science’s attempt to account for it; molecular machines raise an as-yet-impenetrable barrier to Darwinism’s universal reach.“

— Michael J. Behe American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate 1952
Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), p. (1996).

Universe, Silence, Question, Literature

„Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.“

— Émile Durkheim French sociologist (1858-1917) 1858 - 1917

Cry, Pain

„That logic, as a science, is susceptible of very wide applications is admitted; but it is equally certain that its ultimate forms and processes are mathematical.“

— George Boole English mathematician, philosopher and logician 1815 - 1864
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

Mathematics

„We had principles in mathematics that were granted to be absolute in mathematics for over 800 years, but new science has gotten rid of those absolutism, gotten — forward other different logics of looking at mathematics, and sort of turned the way we look at it as a science altogether after 800 years.“

— Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran 1956
2007, Columbia University speech, 24 September 2007 [24 September 2007, http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/202820.php, "Iran's president at Columbia University - a transcript", azstarnet.com, 2007-09-25]

Mathematics, Way

„The facts of science, as they appeared to him [Heraclitus], fed the flame in his soul, and in its light, he saw into the depths of the world.“

— Bertrand Russell logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist 1872 - 1970
1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic

Appearance, Light, Soul, World

„The organic unity of mathematics is inherent in the nature of this science, for mathematics is the foundation of all exact knowledge of natural phenomena. That it may completely fulfil this high mission, may the new century bring it gifted masters and many zealous and enthusiastic disciples!“

— David Hilbert, Mathematical Problems
Mathematical Problems (1900)

Knowledge, Nature, Mathematics

„Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.“

— Louis Pasteur French chemist and microbiologist 1822 - 1895
As quoted in Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1960) by René Jules Dubos, Ch. 3 : Pasteur in Action

World, Knowledge, Intelligence, Country

„Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. … Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. And what is worse, men who are thus Ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy.“

— Roger Bacon, book Opus Majus
Opus Majus, c. 1267, cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world. p. 1

Knowledge, Mathematics, World, Men

„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".

World, Mathematics, Knowledge, Learning

„Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts.“

— David Hilbert, Mathematical Problems
Mathematical Problems (1900), Context: Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts. For with all the variety of mathematical knowledge, we are still clearly conscious of the similarity of the logical devices, the relationship of the ideas in mathematics as a whole and the numerous analogies in its different departments. We also notice that, the farther a mathematical theory is developed, the more harmoniously and uniformly does its construction proceed, and unsuspected relations are disclosed between hitherto separate branches of the science. So it happens that, with the extension of mathematics, its organic character is not lost but only manifests itself the more clearly.

Parting, Mathematics

„Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam egestas wisi a erat. Morbi imperdiet, mauris ac auctor dictum.“

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